


Bruises

by ZoeWithNoY



Category: Dear Evan Hansen - Pasek & Paul/Levenson
Genre: AU, BandTrees, But will have redemption, F/M, Fluff, Heidi Hansen Is a Good Mother, Hurt/Comfort, I Honestly Haven't Decided Yet, I Will Go Down With This Ship, I'm Bad At Tagging, Jared Kleinman is not a good friend, My First Fanfic, So will Connor, Zoevan, jared Kleinman - Freeform, possibly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-18
Updated: 2020-02-29
Packaged: 2021-02-27 12:35:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 29,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22297177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ZoeWithNoY/pseuds/ZoeWithNoY
Summary: Evan notices some bruises on Zoe’s arm and gathers enough courage to talk to her about it. Evan’s anxiety seems to fade when someone he loves needs his help (even if she doesn’t know it or him yet).
Relationships: Evan Hansen/Zoe Murphy
Comments: 24
Kudos: 57





	1. There's Nothing Kind About 100 Small Betrayals

**Author's Note:**

> Hi everyone!  
> This is my first time writing a fiction piece....basically ever. I really love the Dear Evan Hansen fandom, especially Zoe and Evan! It has inspired me to get a hold of my anxiety and to actually let people read what I've written. Forewarning this story doesn't shed a very good light on Connor, even though I like him a lot as a character. I would love any feedback especially if it's positive, but I want to be a better writer so constructive critiques are also welcomed! Enjoy!

Evan is very observant. He figures it’s because he spends most of his time avoiding talking with people or making direct eye contact. His eyes had to look somewhere so he tended to notice all the little things other people did. His favorite person to watch—in a non-creepy way, he swears—was Zoe Murphy. Not only was Zoe the prettiest girl he’d ever seen with her constellation of freckles dotting her face and large green eyes, she was also extremely talented (the first sophomore in their school to get a guitar solo in jazz band ever), and extremely smart (she was in two of Evan’s classes even though she was a grade behind him). 

But most importantly, Zoe was the kindest, sweetest person he’d ever observed. Zoe stood up to bullies at school who picked on other kids. He saw on her Intsagram that she went to marches and protests with Alana Beck for all kinds of causes. She cared so openly and deeply about everything she was involved in, and Evan couldn’t help but admire her, even if it was just from afar. He noticed the tiniest of things—the little stars scribbles on the bottom of her jeans and converses, the purple streak she had in her hair at the end of last year, the quizzes she took in Seventeen magazine in library, the way she danced like she didn’t have a care in the world—he saw it all. 

When he first noticed the bruises on her arms, he didn’t think anything of it. He sometimes got bruised from climbing, maybe she tripped or something? But then he kept seeing them. He saw them creep up her forearms all the way up to her neck, faint and possibly not noticeable to anyone who didn’t study Zoe daily. When she started wearing longer sleeved shirts he started to grow concerned. It looked like she was trying to hide something. Alarm bells started going off in his head, well more than they normally did in any given situation. Something was wrong. Something was wrong and Zoe wasn’t cluing anyone around her as to what it was. Evan would ask her. It went against everything his anxiety told him, but for Zoe he would do it.

==== 

At school on Tuesday Evan spends all morning gathering up his courage and watching to find a moment when Zoe would be alone. Finally, after lunch he sees Zoe alone by her locker, looking a little worse for wear, almost like she hadn’t slept well for a couple of days. He grips his backpack tighter and slowly walks towards her. With a shaky awkward wave Evan stutters out a, “Hi Z-Z-Zoe”, just as Zoe turns to close her locker. 

“Hi there, Evan is it?” Zoe replies with a small smile starting to show. “Evan, yeah yeah it’s uhh Evan” he manages to stumble out.  
“Well Evan, to what do I owe this pleasure?” Zoe says with the slightest of twinkle in her eye. 

“Well I know we’re not like friends or anything, I don’t really have any friends, besides Jared, I guess but he only talks to me for car insurance, so anyways this is probably going to sound pretty weird coming from me and I’m sorry”, Evan rushes out all in one breath. Zoe looks up at him in confusion, “What are you sorry for?”

“Sometimes I talk really f-fast and it’s probably super weird and it’s probably making you uncomfortable”, Evan says dejectedly, “but there is s-something that I wanted to t-talk to you about”. 

“I’m not uncomfortable, I actually think it’s pretty cute” Zoe says blushing as Evan starts to fidget with his hands and shift his weight back and forth. 

“C-c-cute? Well you’ll probably hate me after this and it’s totally so presumptuous of me, but I kinda sorta noticed that you’ve had bruises on your arms for the last couple of weeks and I j-j-just wanted to make sure you were o-o-okay and that if you n-needed anyone to talk to that I’d listen.” Evan looked up at her from his fixed position on the ground and saw her visibly stiffens at the mention of the bruises. “I’m sorry I was totally wrong. I should just go. You probably hate me now” Evan mumbles as he turns to walk away. Zoe stops him by grabbing his arm, “I don’t hate you Evan, but I need to get to class. Do you want to talk after school? You could meet me by my car if you want?”. 

Evan shakily meets Zoe’s eyes, noticing her stormy expression and nods his head slowly. “Yeah yeah yeah I can do that. Your’s is the blue bug right?”, Evan says hoping she doesn’t think it’s creepy that he knows which car she drives. Zoe nods and starts to quickly walk towards her class, with a short, “yep that’s the one, see you later Evan”.  
Evan knows he should get to class or else he’ll be late—and there’s nothing worse than everyone watching him walk in late—but he stays frozen to the ground, watching as Zoe turns the corner out of sight. He can’t believe Zoe didn’t seem mad at him, but it almost made him more worried that she didn’t deny anything. 

====

Evan’s afternoon classes seemingly dragged on forever, allowing him time to both think about what he would say to Zoe and grow more and more anxious about what she might say to him. Was she being nice in the hall because people were around and was just going to yell at him that he was a nosy jerk when they were alone? What if she was going to gather other students to laugh at him? Evan’s slightly more rational side decided that Zoe wasn’t that cruel to try and humiliate him, but she definitely might be angry at him. He also fretted about the other possibility of Zoe telling him exactly where those bruises came from. How would he handle that? Deciding to talk to Zoe had opened so many doors for his anxiety. Was it even worth it? Yes, he decided. He just wanted to make sure she was okay, give him some peace of mind, then he could go back to fading into the background, watching her from afar. 

Evan heard the final bell ring and he waited a bit for all the students to trickle out of the classroom before exiting himself. He didn’t like being pushed around in the other students’ rush to leave. He sped walked to his locker to grab his homework for the night and hoped he wasn’t taking too long for Zoe. He walked quickly to the all-grades parking lot and noticed about half the cars were gone. He looks around and sees Zoe leaning up against the driver’s side of her bug. She looks up and sees him walking over, giving him the tiniest of waves. 

“H-h-hey Zoe”, Evan stammers as he looks at her. She looks tired and a little sad and was nervously playing with the dangly fringe on her shirt. Zoe stares at him for a second a says, “Did you really mean what you said earlier? That you’d listen no matter what?”

Evan rapidly nods his head, replying “Of course. I know we’ve barely talked, but I know what it’s like to feel completely alone, and I didn’t want you to feel that way”. Surprisingly not stuttering once. 

Zoe shakes her head warily, looking right at Evan. “I can’t help feeling like I can trust you, like you, like you really see me. And I might be making a huge mistake, but I don’t think so? Lately it’s been really hard to tell. Do you maybe want to go somewhere more private than our high school parking lot?” Zoe fidgets with her keys waiting for Evan to answer. 

“Yeah yeah sure. Do you have someplace in mind? Cause I know a place. I go there a lot to just think and clear my head. But you probably had something in already in mind. So don’t b-b-bother with mine—” Zoe cuts him off with, “Sounds like exactly what I need right now, where is this place of yours?”

“The a-a-abandoned apple orchard at the edge of town? I think it’s l-l-like 20 minutes from here?” “Okay let’s go. Would you mind giving me directions? Also I hope you like The Rescues, because I’ve been listening to them non-stop”, Zoe says as she gets inside her car, starting the engine, while indicating for Evan to also get in. Evan scurries to the passenger door and opens it somewhat flailing as he gets his longer limbs into the tiny car. 

“I’m sure they’re great. You probably have the best taste in music, because you’re so talented.” 

“You think I’m talented?” Zoe questions quietly. “Of course. I’ve seen you play in jazz band. I love jazz, not like all jazz but definitely like jazz band jazz”, Evan answers in a rush as he starts to blush furiously. 

“Well thanks. I love jazz band jazz too.” Zoe reaches over to the audio console turning up the music, letting the piano and harmonies help her to relax. Evan sensed Zoe didn’t particularly want to talk anymore, which he was thankful for—he hated small talk. He let the music wash over him as well, only speaking to give Zoe the occasional direction to the orchard. The drive passed quickly this way, the two teens listening to music, letting it relax them for the conversation that was about to come. 

====

Zoe pulls into an empty gravel patch that she assumes was once the parking lot to the orchard. She’s not exactly sure why she’s driven all the way out here with Evan Hansen, but she knows that what she’s been doing—hiding everything she’s been feeling—isn’t healthy. She just felt like her “friends” at school and band wouldn’t understand and her parents, well she tried telling them, but they refused to listen. The only other person who seemed to care what happened to her was sitting next to her, fidgeting with his seatbelt, waiting for her to initiate something. 

“Ummm…do you want to walk around Evan?”, Zoe asks quietly trying to meet his eyeline. “Uh uh sure—um I could show you my favorite tree, if you want? I’m sorry, it’s probably weird to have a favorite tree anyways…” Zoe interrupts him again, “Evan it’s not weird. I take it you’re pretty into nature if this is one of your safe places. The way I see it, it’s like having a favorite song, the orchard is your favorite record and the tree is your favorite song from it. I would love to see it, thank you for sharing it with me.” Zoe unclicks her seatbelt and takes her keys out of the ignition, she glances at Evan who still seems flustered, but a little bit in awe of what she’s just told him. She climbs out of her door as Evan rushes to follow her. Locking her doors with the clicker, she turns toward Evan and gestures her hand, seeming to say, “lead the way”. 

Evan motions towards the chain-link fence, walking a little faster to hold it up for Zoe to duck under as they head into the orchard grounds. Feeling slightly emboldened, for God knows what reason, Evan reaches for Zoe’s hand to guide her more easily through the overgrown plants toward the center of the orchard. Zoe blushes but doesn’t drop his hand, but instead grips a little tighter.

“Wow it’s really beautiful here. I can see why you like it so much.” Zoe compliments and Evan nods his head in agreement. It was mid-October, so all the trees were changing color and it was pleasantly cool out, a perfect day to spend in a place like the orchard. They kept walking until they reached one of the oldest looking apple trees, probably 25 feet tall, with sturdy lower branches and droopy higher branches, heavy with unpicked fruit.

“We’re here. This one is my favorite. It’s old, but strong. Stands tall and proud and is kind of everything I wish I could be”, Evan says a little embarrassed by his admission. “Well I think it suits you pretty good” Zoe smiles at Evan. She tugs at his hand and they sit down with their backs against the tree. 

After a few peaceful minutes listening to the birds chirp and enjoying the scenery Evan questions slowly, “Hey Zoe, is everything okay?”, remembering the reason he even gathered enough courage to talk to Zoe Murphy in the first place. 

Zoe looks at him, with her chin wobbling just a bit and her eyes starting to water, “You’re the only one who noticed. I tried to tell people in the beginning, but then it got so hard that I just tried to cover it up instead. You’re the only person who noticed I wasn’t okay. My parents either don’t believe how bad it really is or they’re too afraid to do anything about it. They’re probably just as afraid of him as I am, but shouldn’t they at least try? They’re my parents.” 

Evan starts to rub comforting circles on her hand, they way his mom does to him when he starts to cry. “Who are you talking about Zoe?”, Evan asks gently, not wanting to rush her. 

“It’s -it’s my brother, Connor. He’s unwell, he didn’t used to be like this I swear. We used to be best friends…” Zoe trails off, real tears starting to fall down her face. “He’s violent and he grabs me or will push me into the wall. That bruise on my neck from a few weeks ago was him trying to choke me, until my dad pulled him off. Sometimes he’ll come home high and starting banging on my door threatening to kill me. I think he’s serious about it too. He’s broken my guitar and two of my ukuleles and sometimes he just takes my stuff and burns it during his fits. Besides letting me add a lock to my door, my parents do nothing. They fight all the time about it all the while they let him do this to me continuously.” 

Evan lets go of Zoe’s hand to wrap both his arms around her shaking form, rubbing circles on her back. Zoe leans into Evan’s shoulder, crying full gut-wrenching sobs now. “I’m so sorry this is happening to you Zoe. If you ever need a place to stay to get away from it all, someone to talk to who’ll believe you unconditionally, or anything at all, a-a-at school or during the middle of the night, no matter what I’ll always be available for you. I know it’s not the same, but I completely understand feeling alone in a situation you can’t control. My dad left my mom and me when I was seven to start over with a new family in Colorado. I always figured it was my fault, my anxiety, my problems, they were just too much for him. I never told my mom how bad I felt or how I hadn’t made any friends, that I still don’t have any friends, so I get being so feeling so lost waiting for someone to finally find you.” Evan continued to gently comfort a still crying, but no longer sobbing Zoe. 

Zoe looked up to Evan with her teary eyes, now looking extraordinarily green, “Thank you Evan. I know we literally just met, but I can’t help but feel like we’ve known each other forever. I will take you up on those offers, if you promise to stop saying you don’t have friends, because now we have each other.” 

“I won’t say it again,” Evan smiled softly at her, “And Zoe, I’m absolutely serious. My mom is usually working or in class, so my house is pretty empty. You could leave your guitar there or anything you don’t want Connor to see. And this is pretty presumptuous of me as well, but my mom works at the hospital, so I know she’d help if…if… if you ever wanted to, I don’t know, report him or something.” Evan looked down into Zoe’s eyes seeing all the hurt and confliction in someone so young. 

“I’ll think about it, but please don’t tell her yet,” Zoe says sniffling, “Hey it’s getting pretty late maybe we should head back to my car?” Evan nods and stands with Zoe still in his arms. Now that they were fully standing, he hugs Zoe tightly to his chest, hoping to say that everything would be okay eventually now that they had each other. And he thinks he said everything he needed to say by not saying anything at all.


	2. 5,000 Candles in the Wind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan tells Heidi about his new friendship with Zoe Murphy. Evan helps Zoe through a rough night.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HI!!!  
> I guess this is a multi-chapter fic now??!?!?  
> This chapter is a little bit of a filler and a little shorter than the last one, but hopefully just as good!  
> I'm just free writing this story and kinda seeing where things go and I'm having a fun time writing in new ways like texting/phone calls! Also this was my first time HTML formatting (and I have no idea how to insert emojis so they're just italicized), so if anything looks weird let me know! As always I'd love any feedback you're willing to offer! Thanks for reading!!!!!

Zoe drops Evan back at his house with the promise to text him when she gets home safely, as she hugs him one last time. He can’t believe what a whirlwind of a day it was. He went from having 0 friends and going through the motions every day, to having a 1 Zoe Murphy. He couldn’t wait to tell his mom, not about everything they talked about, he’d promised Zoe, but that he not only talked to Zoe Murphy but that they were actually friends now. He wasn’t used to the giddy anxiousness he currently felt, as opposed to his normal dread filled anxiousness and he kinda loved it. 

Evan awkwardly waved goodbye to Zoe as she pulled out of his driveway and walked into his house. He kicked his shoes off in the entryway and dropped his bookbag on the kitchen counter and taking a seat at one of the barstools. His mom was stirring something that smelled great on the stove. It was rare that his mom was home, especially on a weekday, but Evan reveled in it, especially because today he had something to say that would make her happy. He knew she worried about him constantly, which made him worried about her—a never ending cycle of worry between the two Hansens, but today good news trumped worry.

“Hey honey”, Heidi greets looking up from the stove, “you’re home a little later, where were you?” 

“I was with a friend” Evan replied cheerily. 

“Oh, that’s great, I so happy you were with Jared, I’ve always thought you two were…” 

“No. I wasn’t with Jared,” Evan says cutting off Heidi, the mention of Jared dampening his mood slightly. “I made a new friend today, Z-Z-Zoe M-Murphy”, Evan said stuttering out her name quickly. “I went up to t-t-talk to her and we ended up staying after school, just hanging out, until she drove me home.” 

“Oh Ev, that’s wonderful. I’m so proud of you”, Heidi says walking over to give him a side-hug over the high-back stool he was sitting on. “Is this the very same Zoe Murphy you’ve always had a bit of a crush on?” Heidi asks in a tone that only moms seem to have, while letting go of him and returning to the stove. 

“Well yeah, but it’snotlikethatIswear”, Evan says quickly his face flooding red with a blush. “W-w-were just friends. She really needs a friend right now, and I get that” the last part coming out barely above a whisper, and he’s not really sure if Heidi heard him. 

“I’m just happy to hear it Evan. I can’t wait to meet her. I’m so proud of you!” Heidi repeats as she starts to retell the drama between the nurses at work from the last couple of days. Evan starts to tune out his mother just a smidge—he had a lot on his mind, it was totally valid—when his phone buzzed alerting him to a new notification. 

**6:57 p.m. Zoe Murphy:** Hey Evan! Letting you know that I made it home safely as promised! Thanks for everything today. See you tomorrow at school!

Evan was shocked. Whenever he asked Jared to text him that he was okay he always just blew it off, even though he knew that it made Evan anxious. Earlier Evan just figured that Zoe was being polite and wouldn’t actually text him. It made him feel warm inside, like maybe Zoe might really see him and could possibly like what she saw. However, the thought of texting her back made his stomach churn. He had to right? That’s what people did, they respond to texts. When they were at the orchard he could just talk, without really thinking about it, but with texting it was so much harder. He had to sit and rethink every little detail for fear of coming off the wrong way.

But then again, he had promised he’d be there for her no matter what and this was a tiny thing he could do, and for Zoe he absolutely would. He thinks simple is better—less ways for him to mess up, and types back:

**7:01p.m. Evan Hansen:** Hey Zoe! Glad to hear it. Let me know if you need anything. See you at school.

Oh god. He put way too many periods, his sentences were way too short, and he hadn’t added any little emojis, she was going to think he was mad at her or something. He continued to have his silent crisis with Heidi’s babble in the background, thinking he blew it for sure, when Zoe messaged:

**7:05 p.m. Zoe Murphy:** _blushing smiley_

He never thought a single emoji could make him feel better, but it seemed to calm the noises in his head, for now at least. He wasn’t really sure how to respond, so he didn’t, and he figured she was probably eating dinner anyways. If it was weird, he’d apologize to her tomorrow, seeing how she’d said she would see him tomorrow and so far, Evan didn’t have a reason not to believe her. Evan tuned back into his mom who was now portioning out dinner into two bowls and tried to just relax and enjoy the brief time he had with her.

====

Evan woke up suddenly to the chirping of his phone, because he always turned on the sound before bed for emergencies, even though no one ever texted or called him. But he had new text from Zoe.

**11:47 p.m. Zoe Murphy:** Hey Evan, are you up right now?

Evan sat up and unplugged his phone from the charger to bring it closer. It was almost midnight and if Zoe was texting him something was probably wrong.

**11:49 p.m. Evan Hansen:** I am now. Is everything okay?

Evan anxiously fiddled with his phone while he waited for Zoe to reply. He was about to let his thoughts spiral, thinking the worst, when his phone chimes again.

**11:51 p.m. Zoe Murphy:** My parents won’t stop fighting. Connor left right after I got home and he hasn’t come back and isn’t answering his phone I guess. I can’t sleep and music isn’t really helping

Evan can’t help but empathize with her. He remembers when his parents used to fight constantly when they thought he was sleeping. Sometimes about him, sometimes about money, and then eventually about his dad leaving. He hated that Zoe was going through that alone. Maybe trying to distract her could help?

**11:52 p.m. Evan Hansen:** I’m sorry Zo. I bet he’ll come home soon? Ummm sometimes when I can’t sleep I watch silly shows I could stay up and keep you company  
**11:53 p.m. Evan Hansen:** If you want to you totally don’t have to  
**11:53 p.m. Evan Hansen:** sorry

Jesus, why was Evan such a mess? A triple text? She probably thinks that is so annoying. He’s about to text another apology for his weird texting, when a reply from Zoe comes though.

**11:54 p.m. Zoe Murphy:** that sounds better than what I’m doing right now what’d you have in mind?

Evan thought about what might make Zoe feel better. He’d been on a _Brooklyn Nine-Nine_ kick lately, but he didn’t think that, although hilarious, a show about cops would be particularly distracting for her right now. Might make her think of Connor getting arrested. He thought of _Parks and Rec_ because 1) it’s the epitome of wholesome and 2) he really did like that it was about preserving parks (kinda) so he texts Zoe back.

**11:56 p.m. Evan Hansen:** Parks and Rec? I really love how much Leslie loves parks _tree tiny horse candle_

**11:56 p.m. Zoe Murphy:** Lol. Yes how about the Lil Sebastian ep since you made the reference? Also would you mind switching to a call? I think my parents maybe went to bed

**11:57 p.m. Incoming Call from Evan Hansen**

Evan doesn’t really know what’s coming over him, he hates talking on the phone, but suddenly he’s hitting the call button as soon as he finishes reading Zoe’s text. Somehow he finds that he’s able to overcome a lot of his fears if it means making Zoe feel even the teeniest bit better. He holds the phone to his ear and hears a soft “Hey Evan Hansen” from Zoe.

“H-h-h-hey Zoe Murphy”, Evan says shakily, “How are you? Actually don’t answer that it was a dumb question. I’m sorry”

Zoe laughs and Evan stiffens a little, but realizes she’s not laughing _at_ him and relaxes when she responds with, “It’s okay Evan. It’s kinda a fair question. I’m okay but as much as I don’t like when Connor is here, when he’s gone the anticipation of him storming home at any moment is worse you know? Like I’m always holding my breath waiting for something bad to happen…”

“I know that feeling pretty well” Evan says, “I’m really glad you texted me. I don’t want you to feel like you have to do this alone anymore.”

“Thank Ev,” Zoe says her voice soft, “But let’s getting to the distracting. I don’t want to think about Connor or my parents right now. They’re just 5,000 candles in the wind right now”

Evan laughs at the _Parks_ reference glad that Zoe was cheering up even just a little bit, that he could be there for her.

The night goes on with them talking and laughing until they finally fall asleep around 3:30 with their phones smooshed to their faces and laptops open precariously on the other sides of their beds. Zoe doesn’t even hear Connor come home, sleeping peacefully for the first time in weeks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading!!!! I think next up will be Evan and Zoe at school.  
> Feel free to leave any suggestions/comments/critiques as I'm trying really hard to grow as a writer!


	3. All's Well That Ends Well

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan and Zoe interact at school and Evan deals with Jared not being a very supportive "family" friend.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yay! Another chapter! I feel like things are moving pretty quickly between Zoe and Evan, but I wanted to show how invested both of them are in each other, and I think this chapter does a good job of that. Thanks for reading!

Evan woke up to Heidi knocking on his door with a, “Evan if you don’t leave soon you’ll be late for school!” 

Shit. His phone must have died last night when he was talking to Zoe, so his alarm didn’t go off this morning. He quickly plugged it in to at least catch the time, _7:42 A.M._. If he showered quickly, skipped breakfast, and sped walked to school he could still make it to first period before the tardy bell rang at 8:30. He left his phone to at least charge a little while he showered quickly. He threw on some clean clothes, it wasn’t really that hard since he basically wore the same thing every day: polo, jeans, and his New Balance sneakers. He grabs his bookbag and lunch and heads out the door, locking it behind him because Heidi had already left for work.

=== 

Evan sits down in his seat at the back of AP Literature just as the bell rings. He’s trying to cover up the fact that he’s breathing heavily by rifling through his bag for a notebook, when Jared, who he hadn’t noticed was sitting next to him, says, “Evan Hansen, almost late for first period, what happened? No let me guess… you got distracted by a tree on the way here and had to go see it. Your tree-kink is starting to get out of control..” 

“N-n-n-no Jared, that’s not what h-h-happened. My phone died last night, so my a-a-alarm didn’t go off”, Evan says back, choosing to ignore Jared’s mean comment about him having a “tree-kink”. 

“Your phone died? Were you up all night cyber-stalking Zoe Murphy? You know when she finds out you’re obsessed with her she’s going to freak out and hate you,” Jared snickers haughtily. 

Evan debates whether he should tell Jared that he was _talking_ with Zoe all last night and had spent the _entire_ afternoon with her but thinks better of it. Jared would either tease him relentlessly making him rethink what little confidence he had in his and Zoe’s friendship or wouldn’t believe him at all, which would lead to more teasing about him “fantasizing” about Zoe. Both options seemed like a lose-lose situation for Evan, so he goes with a, “W-w-whatever Jared, just pay attention to cl-cl-class”, turning forward to look at what the teacher was writing on the whiteboard and starts to copy them down. 

Jared actually seems stunned that Evan didn’t stammer back a defense that he _wasn’t_ a stalker or obsessed with Zoe that he doesn’t have a comeback prepared and instead stares intensely at Evan for a minute or two with a perplexed look on his face, before turning to start taking notes as well. 

Evan is relieved that he doesn’t have another class with Jared until after lunch, it was freaking him out the way Jared was staring at him during AP Lit. It’s not like they were “friends” or whatever, Jared told him so constantly, so he didn’t owe any explanation to him. Even with the rational thoughts in his head floating around, the irrational ones were starting to take over and he could feel his heartbeat start to quicken. He tried to take deep breaths in and out to help him calm down. His favorite class, Agriculture III, was next period, and they were planting some of the seeds they had been sprouting, and Evan was really looking forward to it. He focuses on that and remembers how Zoe was laughing last night, and soon enough he starts to feel better. 

=== 

After Ag, where he was able to plant all twelve of his sprouts (the most of everyone in the class), he has Algebra II, one of the classes he shares with Zoe. Normally he dreads this class, he was pretty bad at math, but he was going to see Zoe and that cheered him up quite a bit. He quickly exchanged books at his locker and walked to the math classrooms, successfully going unnoticed by the majority of the students. 

When he walks into the classroom, he sees Zoe right away, sitting in the front row like she normally did, scrolling aimlessly on her phone. The girl next to her was talking to her, well more like at her, as Zoe seemed pretty checked out of the conversation. Evan takes a moment to take her in as if he hadn’t just seen her yesterday, and he’s always in awe in how effortlessly put together she is. Her hair is braided down her shoulder, with a couple baby hairs framing her face, wearing a long-sleeved red dress with little white flowers. He knows now that a lot of effort goes into Zoe’s ability to not draw negative attention to herself, to appear perfect so no one asks any questions that she can’t answer, but he can’t help but admire her. 

Zoe looks up from her phone and sees Evan watching her and smiles so wide and waves at him, now full on ignoring the girl talking to her. Evan, in his cute awkward way, starts to wave back when another student entering the classroom bumps into him, causing him to trip, but thank god not fall in front of the entire class. He steadies himself and stutters a, “s-s-s-sorry” to the boy who ran into him and scurries to the back of the classroom, too embarrassed to meet Zoe’s eyeline again. He keeps his head down for the rest of class, trying to focus on the worksheets the teacher handed out. 

Evan is surprised when the bell rings and he waits his customary couple of minutes before leaving, and he sees Zoe waiting for him at the front of the classroom. Evan still felt a little nervous around Zoe, partly because he tripped in front of her and the other part for reasons he hopes never go away. “Hey Zoe, y-y-you didn’t need to wait for me or anything. You probably want to get to class or see your friends or use the bathroom...”, Evan’s nervously rambles as he grabs his backpack straps.

“Hey Ev, I thought we could walk to Psych together”, Zoe says nudging him playfully while holding her books. 

“Yeah, um, yes, uh, but are you sure you want to walk with me? I’m not exactly cool”, Evan trails off, tugging on his straps again and finally looks up to meet Zoe’s eyes. 

“Evan, I don’t care about any of that,” Zoe says looking at him earnestly, “I like hanging out with you. You’re like the only person I have who I can be real with, and, and I don’t care what anyone else thinks, please believe that”. 

“Okay, I believe you. It’s just the only real experience I have with friends is Jared and he doesn’t really like to be seen with me, so I didn’t really know that you- that you would want to”, Evan says sheepishly. 

“Well I want to, and I think we could hang out during lunch if you’re up for it?”, Zoe responds firmly and without any of the pity Evan was expecting. They start walking out of the math classroom and towards their psychology class side-by-side. If either of them notice that their arms are brushing, they don’t say anything about it. 

“Yeah that would be cool, since it’s nice out I usually sit at this table by the greenhouse there’s a pretty cool o-o-oak tree over there too, if you want to sit there obviously, we could totally go somewhere else if you didn’t want to be outside, I don’t know m-m-maybe it’s a little cold,” Evan rambles, while Zoe watches him endearingly. She pushes her books to one hip and reaches out to gently touch his arm, and stops him saying, “Sounds great, you can tell me all about oak trees and I can show you a playlist I made last night. I’m thinking about covering one of them for a band assignment that’s due in a couple weeks.” 

They reach the door to their psychology classroom and end up having to split, much to both their dissatisfaction because their psych teacher insisted on “assigned seats” even though they were in high school. Evan’s was in the second to last row, by the window, which while he preferred the back row, he was happy he could at least see outside when the class got too boring. Zoe’s seat was basically the farthest away from him, being the closest to the door and whiteboard. 

Evan let his mind wander during class, only taking notes to appear invested in the class, but in actuality he was thinking about Zoe. He was finally getting the chance to know her, not romanticize her, not hold her on this pedestal above everything, but truly get to know her. And he thinks she’s better than anything he could have imagined anyways. 

Then there was the issue with Connor and her family, and he was scared for her, but letting her know that wouldn’t do any good for either of them. Maybe if she was away from her house more often or if he was with her at her house Connor wouldn’t try anything? He decides to ask her during lunch if she wants to come over after school. Heidi wouldn’t care (he hopes), but its not like she was going to be home anyways. 

Finally, the bell rings releasing everybody for lunch, and Evan hurries to shove all his stuff back into his backpack to catch up to Zoe at the front of the classroom. Zoe’s waiting for him, smiling and shifting her weight back and forth on her toes. She asks him, “Do you need to stop by your locker or anything before going outside?” 

“Uhhh, no, I think I’m good. I usually grab my stuff after lunch. Umm, what about you?” Evan asks hoping that he doesn’t sound too awkward. 

“Nah, I can go after lunch too. I’m pretty ready to go outside and just chill, hear about trees,” she smiles slyly at him as Evan’s face flushes a little. 

“Okay, um, w-w-we should go by the back door, that’s the fastest way to the greenhouse, not like I’ve timed it or anything, that would be weird”, Evan says quickly. Even after sharing everything they have with each other Evan still can’t help but be a little nervous around her. 

Zoe just laughs and gently pushes Evan towards the door, her hand sliding down his arm until it stops by his hand. She looks up at him, silently asking if this was okay. He responds by clasping her hand, like lego-hand style, not interweaved. Because that way had _implications_ , but holding hands the other way was a totally normal things friends did right? Instead of worrying that his hands were sweaty, he focuses on when they were holding hands yesterday, just him guiding her to a place she’d never been before and remembers that’s exactly what he’s doing now. 

They make it to the table with Evan pushing down his paranoia that people were _staring_ at them, and he can finally relax because this spot is fairly secluded, away from the prying eyes of nosy students, which one of the reasons Evan likes it so much. He reluctantly drops Zoe’s hand so they can sit across from each other and takes off his backpack, setting it beside him and pulls out his lunch. Zoe pulls a tupperware out of her messenger bag, that has an _interesting_ looking pasta, possibly, inside of it. 

Zoe sees Evan looking at her lunch and laughs it off, “Yeah my mom has been on like a weird keto-paleo diet thing lately, so most of the food in the Murphy household is inedible”. 

Evan laughs alongside her, offering her some of his more normal lunch. “Oh thank God, you’re the best Evan”, Zoe says grabbing some of his mini pretzels and pushing her “lunch” off to the side. 

Pretty soon they hear the first bell, signaling that lunch period was over, and neither of them can believe it. They wished they could stay right there in that moment forever, a happy little bubble that was only them. The forty-five minutes which usually felt like an eternity when Evan sat by himself, seemed to breeze by filled with them talking and laughing, with Zoe picking out songs to sing/play for him with increasing ridiculousness, and with Evan supplying interesting facts about different kinds of plants that he thought Zoe might like. Evan only remembered that he was going to ask her to come over after school as they were walking back towards the main building. 

“Hey uhh Zo?”, Evan asks stopping mid-question, now suddenly feeling anxious again, he didn’t want her to feel like pressured to keep hanging out with him, but he also wanted to keep seeing her and sneakily keep her from her own home for as long as he could. 

“Hmmm?” Zoe asks turning back around as she had continued to walk when Evan stopped. 

“Would you maybe want to come over after school? To my house I mean, where else would I be talking about? You totally don’t have to, but I thought maybe we could do like homework or something? I don’t know” Evan says in a flurry of words and hand gestures, ending with him looking up from the ground to meet her gaze. 

“I can’t come”, Zoe starts to say, when Evan’s shoulders visibly droop, and his face falls just a little. 

“That’s okay. I shouldn’t’ve asked. It was probably weird and so annoying”, Evan says quickly now looking away from Zoe and back to the ground and about to start rambling more excuses. 

Zoe interrupts him now to clarify, “Evan, you didn’t let me finish. I was going to say I can’t come directly after school because I have jazz band today, but I can come over after that. I could actually use some help with my chemistry lab if you’re interested”. 

He dares to look up from the ground and sees Zoe looking up at him, her cheeks starting to match the red in the dress she was wearing. He smiles sheepishly at her and starts to nod his head and says, “Yeah totally that works. I should have remembered you had jazz band anyways, not that I know jazz band schedule or anything.” 

Zoe just shakes her head playfully, grabs his hand again and starts leading them back to class. 

=== 

Evan sits down in the back of his US History class, after walking Zoe to her Chemistry lab, blissfully unaware for the second time that day that Jared Kleinman was sitting next to him. Evan is finally broken out of his happy little reverie when Jared actually starts snapping in front of his face. 

“Hey Acorn, Tree-boy, Hansen, Evan!” Jared practically screams over the din of the rest of the class. 

“Yes, Jared?” Evan asks exasperated by being dragged out of his daydream. “What do you need?” 

“Care to explain why I just saw you and _Zoe Murphy_ in the hallway. Together. Holding hands. Did she fall and hit her head? Did you trick her somehow? There’s no way you and her were actually hanging out during lunch”, Jared cackles like he’s just told the best joke ever. 

Evan flinches at the harsh words, but like this morning chooses to ignore most of it. He and Zoe had a good thing going and he didn’t need Jared’s influence ruining it. “It’s none of your b-b-business Jared, if Zoe and I were hanging out or n-n-not. Since when do you care anyways?”, Evan retorts coolly, even if he was starting to feel anxious over the interaction. 

“As your only family friend, it’s my responsibility to tease you endlessly,” Jared says, throwing in at the end, “especially when it concerns someone way out of your league like Zoe Murphy”. 

“Well I’m pretty sure my business concerns only me and my _actual_ friends not _family friends_ , which Zoe is, so you don’t really need to be a part of it…” Evan trails off after realizing that what he just said to Jared was pretty mean. 

“Damn Hansen, you’re feeling spicy today”, Jared huffs, turning back around in his seat, adding sarcastically, “Don’t come crying to me when things go south though”. 

Evan grabs his work-packet out and starts to work on it while thinking about what Jared said. _When things go south_. That wasn’t going to happen was it? What if Zoe didn’t really want to be friends? What if she was just setting him up? No. He realizes he’s shaking his head in attempt to shake those kinds of thoughts out of his head. He and Zoe were friends, possibly on the way to becoming best friends or more. She trusts him and isn’t mean to him and wants to spend time with him. Good signs. He remembers how happy he felt after lunch and last night talking on the phone and actively decides to trust himself, to ignore the voices in his head. It didn’t matter what anyone else thought or said, or what came before because now there was a _them_ and he thought the rest of the world could just fall away. He and Zoe were more than okay, they were them and for now that’s enough. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a sidenote that my high school did have many agriculture classes and a greenhouse and a mandarin orchard and a working farm, and I think Evan would have been into it if his school offered it. We also had psychology and an hour lunch and only 6 periods. I based this high school experience 100% off of mine. 
> 
> I hope you enjoyed reading! As always please leave anything you want to say positive or constructive!


	4. Darling Only You Can Ease My Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zoe invites Evan to meet her parents, and dinner with the Murphy's doesn't go exactly as planned.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really appreciate that people seem to be enjoying and reading this story! What started as a tiny thought is now almost a complete story and I can't believe it. Hopefully my writing has gotten better, because this chapter is LONG. There was just too much I wanted to add, so some of it is getting pushed to the next chapter. I'm planning to probably have 2-3 more chapters of this story. 
> 
> Evan might be a little OOC in this, but it's something that I really wanted to explore, that Evan would literally do anything for Zoe, leaving his anxiety behind in the event that she needs him....and she does in this chapter. Not to say that Zoe isn't a strong independent woman, but everybody needs help sometimes and it can be especially hard to ask for it when your family is involved. TW: Light depictions of violence, like very light, because I didn't want to write anything graphic. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone for reading, leaving kudos, and comments! Enjoy!

Weeks fly by and Evan and Zoe fall into a steady happy routine. They walk to class together, Evan holding Zoe’s books when she had to carry her guitar case, otherwise holding each other’s hand. They eat lunch together, at _their_ table by the greenhouse, Evan bringing extra snacks that he knows Zoe likes, like fruit snacks or Cheez-Itz, whenever Cynthia packs her “lunch”, and Zoe always daring Evan to try some of said lunch even though he resisted every time. 

Zoe spends basically every day after school and jazz band practice at Evan’s house. Sometimes she would stay for dinner the nights that Heidi was home, which Heidi loved because she adored Zoe. And sometimes she would sleep over the nights Heidi wasn’t home—in a totally platonic way Evan swears —even though they’d usually wake up cuddling into one another. Weekends were spent goofing around together, exploring the orchard and the national park that was close by, going to the vintage record store that Zoe loved, buying over-priced coffee a boutique coffee shoppes, to feel “fancy” Zoe claimed, doing anything and everything they could to spend time together. 

Slowly Evan’s room fills up with tiny reminders that Zoe has been there. Colorful hair ties, the strawberry chapstick she swore disappeared, one of her ukuleles, her sparkly gold sweatshirt and other random pieces of clothes, a couple of her school notebooks and the array of rainbow sharpies she used to fill them, and Evan’s two personal favorites, the smudges of purple dye all over his desk from when they tried—unsuccessfully—to re-dye Zoe’s hair and the strip of photo-booth pictures that he had tacked above his desk that Zoe had insisted on taking when she saw the booth at the mall. Evan relishes in it. His room used to be reminder of everything he didn’t have. A plain canvas of blue paint, basic wood furniture and a blue bed, more like a model home than the room of a teenage boy. But now everywhere he looked reminded him of what he and Zoe had created together. A safe haven in the unforgiving storm that was their lives. 

Everyday Evan secretly gave Zoe a once-over assessment, checking that she was okay without trying to overstep. Her bruises start to fade, and he doesn’t notice any new ones replacing the old ones like they used to. According to Zoe, Connor hadn’t had any violent episodes lately and her parents had been fighting less. She was feeling optimistic. She was happier than she had been in a long time, and Evan liked to think he played a part in her happiness. 

However, the only downside to being best friends with Zoe Murphy, was that she was _Zoe Murphy_ , one of the most popular girls at school and people noticed her, thereby noticing Evan now too. Sometimes when Zoe wasn’t around during passing periods, other “popular” kids, jocks mostly, would harass him about being friends with her. He ignored the bullying and the bullies the same way he ignored Jared when him and Zoe first started hanging out, knowing that engaging in it would lead him down a path he didn’t want to go down. If he let other kids who didn’t know anything about _them_ cast doubts in his mind, he would spiral out of control. Sometimes though he would think of a witty or sarcastic remark and say it while he walked away, feeling triumphant and more intelligent than his bullies. Being around Zoe helped him feel in control of his anxiety. Things that would make his heart race, his shoulder ache, and his breathe quicken only months ago, didn’t seem to bother him as much anymore. He’d even stopped stammering as much as he used to, around Zoe at least. Evan was happy, happier than he’d ever been, and he knew it was because of Zoe.

=

Evan and Zoe had been sitting on his bed after school, Evan finishing up an assay for psychology on his laptop. Zoe had already finished writing hers, so she was finding the perfect filter to add to her Instagram story of her covering _Paper Rings_ on her ukulele. They coincidentally finished at the same time, Zoe setting down her phone while Evan closed his laptop. Zoe sighed deeply as she flopped back on Evan’s bed, clearly something on her mind. Evan obviously noticing that something was up, grabbed her hands and pulled her back to sitting, interweaving them together with his—they had moved past basic hand-holding, even though it always made Evan blush—asking her softly, “What’s the matter Zo?” 

“Ugh it’s just my parents. They’ve been badgering me nonstop about them meeting you. And I’m supposed to ask you to dinner for Friday night, they didn’t even ask if we had plans, more just like demanded that you be there...” Zoe says, glancing up at Evan, who was about to say something, when she continues, “Apparently they want to know more about the “mysterious” friend who’s taking up all my time. Like they ever cared before what I was doing”, dropping their hands to mime quotes around _friends_ before intertwining them once more. 

“Do you not want them to meet me?” Evan asks slightly hurt, looking down away from her, letting his anxiety creep back in convincing him that maybe he wasn’t good enough for her parents, that she preferred keeping him a secret, because clearly that’s why he hadn’t met them before now. 

“No, no, Evan it’s not that,” Zoe says sensing where his mind was taking him, “They’ll absolutely love you. It’s more like I don’t want you to have to deal with them and their antics. And I know they’ll try to force Connor down too for like, family bonding, or whatever. And you know how I feel about that. Family bonding doesn’t usually turn out super great for me”. Evan had looked up from the ground during her explanation, now meeting her troubled gaze and squeezes her hand a little tighter. He could do this. He could have dinner with her parents. Connor though, he didn’t feel so sure about.

“Maybe it won’t be so bad?”, Evan responds. When did he become an optimist? Oh that’s right, in this very moment where Zoe looks so conflicted that she’ll pass out, he can’t help but to try and see the bright side, for both of them. Maybe it really wouldn’t be that bad. Maybe Cynthia and Larry could put a face to name of their daughter’s friend and leave it at that. Maybe Connor wouldn’t be there, it was going to be a Friday night after all.

Zoe just sighs again and moves to lay her head in his lap, hands still clasped together. Evan knowing that she was still pretty skeptical of the whole thing, tries again to convince it might be okay, a little more confidently than before, “Well I’ll be there, that should smooth things out right? Even if Connor does show up. You’ve never had to deal with everything with someone else there who’s completely on your side. We make a pretty good team, Zoe Murphy.” 

Zoe smiled at that, starting to feel a little better, agreeing with his previous statement. “Yeah, yeah we do make a pretty great team Evan Hansen”, giggling through his last name because he had used hers. “Maybe it’ll be okay. I’ll tell them we have movie tickets for later that night or something—an escape plan of sorts—so hopefully it won’t go on too long.”

“There’s the spirit”, Evan says as he moves to surprise tickle her, knowing the resulting tickle fight would leave her laughing and in a much better mood. 

=

Friday rolls around faster than either Evan or Zoe would like. They’re having dinner with Cynthia and Larry at 6 P.M. Although Evan was feeling more confident at the beginning of the week, most of it was for Zoe’s benefit. He hadn’t felt this anxious in a while, but he could tell Zoe was feeling anxious as well, so he tried not to clue her into his anxiety, she didn’t need the extra burden. They went directly to the orchard after school, attempting to relieve some of their joint anxiety. Climbing up Evan’s favorite tree and chatting and roaming around, Zoe trying to pick out her favorite tree, she couldn’t—they were all too pretty. These tried and true measures worked to an extent, but eventually they had to face reality. It was 5:30 and they had to drive to Zoe’s house and face Zoe’s parents.

They clambered into Zoe’s little bug, Evan delicately picking up the small African Violet potted plant he was bringing as a “host gift” to the Murphys and setting it in his lap for the drive. Zoe claimed it wasn’t necessary to bring her parents anything, but Evan insisted because that’s what you did when you were invited over somewhere. He was pretty sure at least. He had grown it during Ag and it needed a home anyways, he tried to casually throw in that she could keep it, if she wanted to, but she had already been distracted by driving. They drove the 20 minutes to the Murphy house without talking, listening to Zoe’s special playlist, reserved for only emergency pick-me-ups, which is how she categorized this dinner. 

Zoe parked her car in the big circular driveway in front of her house but hesitated in getting out of the car. Evan noticed her reluctance to leave as he always seems to do when Zoe is concerned and releases his belt to reach over and hug her. He consoles her by whispering, “ It’ll be okay Zo. I’ll be there the whole time and it’s only going to be an hour and half, escape plan remember? We can do this.” 

“We can do this”, Zoe repeats taking a deep breath in and out then releases Evan’s hug to get out of the car. He follows suit getting out, straightening his clothes before grabbing his little plant, and closing the door. Zoe hits the clicker, locking her car door. Normally she would grab Evan’s free hand and walk up to the door, but she had warned Evan beforehand that they needed to tone down their little touches or else face the nonstop questions from Cynthia and hard “fatherly” glares from Larry. Evan wasn’t going to lie he was a little hurt, would it really be the worst for her parents to think they were “dating”? But the rational side of him could see Zoe’s point and just wanted this dinner to go as smooth as possible for both of them.

Zoe opened the door and dropped her keys and bookbag on the end table near the door, kicking off her boots at the same time as yelling, “Mom, Dad, I’m home and Evan’s with me”. 

Evan was just standing in the entry way holding his plant-gift, unsure of what to do next. He figured the best thing to do would be to copy Zoe and he gingerly placed his bookbag next to hers and toed off his sneakers, lining them up perfectly next to Zoe’s shoes. He looks to Zoe to lead them in their next move, when the bubbly voice of Cynthia Murphy echoes through the hallway, followed shortly by her figure waving at them, saying, “Oh you guys are right on time, dinner’s just about ready. And you must be Evan, the one capturing all of our Zoe’s time these days.” 

“Evan” , he repeats awkwardly, mimicking the same thing he said to Zoe when he first talked to her. Cynthia walks over to try and hug him, but Evan quickly sticks out his arms to offer the plant to her instead. “Th-th-th-this is for y-y-you M-M-Mrs. Murphy. It’s an African V-v-v-violet” Evan stumbles out, not meeting Cynthia’s eyes at all during the interaction. 

“Why thank you dear, it’s lovely. And you just call me Cynthia, none of that Mrs. Murphy, makes me feel old,” Cynthia chuckles while taking the plant from Evan. Zoe rolls her eyes at this, glancing over at Evan who’s trying his best to keep it together, now that he wasn’t holding anything. 

“Why don’t you two go wash up and head to the dining room, Connor just finished setting the table”, Cynthia says not noticing or potentially not really caring that both Zoe and Evan visibly stiffen at the mention that Connor was home. 

“You didn’t tell me Connor was going to be home tonight Mom”, Zoe says clearly unhappy about the night was going already. Evan steps in closer to Zoe, brushing their arms the tiniest bit, his silent way of trying to give her support. 

“Well Connor’s part of this family, isn’t he?”, Cynthia asks rhetorically to Zoe, trying to mask her annoyance and keep up a façade around Evan. 

“Ughhhh”, Zoe just groans turning and walking towards the hall bathroom, with Evan quickly following her. When they’re both inside she closes the door part way and turns on the faucet. She looks to Evan and starts whisper-ranting, “I can’t believe they did this. To pretend in front of you that we’re some big happy family. It couldn’t be farther from the truth. And I’m really sorry this is happening”. 

Evan steps closer to her, to pull her into a hug, once again feeling brave in the wake of Zoe feeling unhappy, gently rubbing her back for a moment before pulling away and saying, “It’ll be okay. We can get through this together. If anything, it’s just going to be super awkward because I’m here and that tends to happen when I’m involved. You said Connor was doing better right? Maybe nothing will happen, and it’ll just be a super weird dinner and then we can leave. That’s not too bad right?”

“Yeah, I guess so”, Zoe replies unable to shake the feeling that something bad was bound to happen. She squeezes Evan one more time before actually washing her hands. After Evan washed his hands as well Zoe leads them to the Murphy’s formal dining room. Evan is taken aback by the grandeur of the room, a fancy chandelier, place settings with cloth napkins and real china, high backed chairs surrounding an 8-person table. He hadn’t really looked around the house before now, being too preoccupied meeting Cynthia and then comforting Zoe in the bathroom. He knew Zoe’s family was wealthy, but damn, it was a lot to take in. 

Larry and Connor were already seated when Zoe and Evan walked in, Larry at the head of the table and Connor in the seat to his right, like he was guarding Connor from the exit. Evan figured that probably was the case, that Connor wasn’t here because he wanted to be, but because his parents had forced him. 

Upon seeing Evan and Zoe enter the room, Larry stands up to greet them, or greet Evan. He glances towards Zoe, somewhat acknowledging she’s there, then loudly says, “Evan, it’s so good to meet you finally”, while holding his hand out for Evan to shake. Evan limply shakes his hand, quickly stuttering a, “N-n-n-nice to m-m-meet you M-M-Mr. Murphy”. 

Evan speaking piques the interest of Connor, who just seconds after Evan drops Larry’s hand, looks directly at Evan and cruelly says, “Jesus Christ, Zoe we have to have this fucking dinner to meet your dumb boyfriend and he can’t even talk right”. 

Evan turned bright red at the comment, his speech pattern had always made him self-conscious, and Connor directly pointing it out as the first thing he says to Evan was not exactly what he’d been thinking when he was telling Zoe everything would be okay. If these first few minutes were any indication, it was not boding well for the rest of dinner. Evan retreats back until his arm is touching Zoe once more and looks at her glaring at Connor, too anxious to do much else. 

“Are you going to say something to him? He just insulted my friend”, Zoe spits out after Larry clearly wasn’t going to reprimand Connor. 

“Zoe let’s not get into this right now. Just sit down. Ahh here comes your mother”, Larry says while taking a big swig from a tumbler. Evan assumed it was whiskey, but his mom didn’t really drink so he wasn’t an expert on alcohol. 

Zoe huffed and sat down across from Connor, gesturing that Evan should sit beside her, saving him from having to sit directly across from him or next to him. Just as they sat down, Cynthia came bustling in with a tray of roasted chicken, potatoes and carrots, as if they were in a weird 1950’s time warp, setting it in the middle of the table. She starts to serve up each person’s plates starting with Larry and ending with herself as she took the last open seat next to Connor and across from Evan. 

Evan had never felt more uncomfortable in his life. The way Cynthia and Larry had just brushed off Zoe’s concerns, the way they just pretended everything was okay. The strange silence as Cynthia had been serving plates. Now that everyone was seated, Evan wasn’t sure how the rest of dinner would go.

“Well Evan,” Larry started, “Tell us more about yourself. Do you play any sports?” He was trying to start a conversation, and Evan hoped it would be less awkward than the silence. 

“Ummm. No. N-n-not really. I do climb t-t-trees though. I want to b-b-be a park ranger after c-c-college”, Evan said trying really hard to even out his pace and stutter less.

“Is this kid for real? You’re into trees? That’s the saddest fucking thing I’ve ever heard”, Connor laughs and adds sarcastically at the end, “ You picked a real winner there, Zo”. 

“At least Evan isn’t high all the time and has an actual plan for his life, unlike you” Zoe says defending Evan from her brother. 

“Zoe, please don’t talk like that. It’s not constructive”, Cynthia chides, trying to de-escalate the situation, Evan thinks, but not really addressing that it’s Connor who needs reigning in. 

“Yeah Zoe. It’s not constructive”, Connor says haughtily as Zoe winces. Evan looks down and sees her move her legs away from Connor, clear evidence that he’d just kicked her. 

“Evan do you have any brothers or sisters?” Cynthia asks politely, trying to steer the conversation away from Connor and Zoe, not really seeing that the more Evan said, the more Connor would be able to use to 1) make him feel embarrassed and 2) make Zoe feel defensive and angry.

Even though Evan would rather not answer the question, he gives a quiet, “It’s just me and my mom”, before eating some of the over-baked chicken to avoid more conversation by chewing and looking down at his plate. While looking down he sees Connor kick Zoe again, this time seemingly unprovoked. He sets his fork down and places his hands in his laps, twiddling them before sneakily—he hopes—placing one hand on Zoe’s leg, a small reminder that they were suffering together. 

Evan glances at the large decorative clock that’s on the wall behind Cynthia and Connor, _6:37_ only a little bit left and then he and Zoe could leave for their “movie”. 

“Evan grew that plant he gave you, Mom. All the way from a seedling”, Zoe says hoping that talking about plants and trees could ease the tension in the room and help Evan out. 

She should’ve known it’d only fuel another insult from Connor as he chimed in, “Isn’t that how all plants grow? What’s so special about that?” 

“It’s actually a lot h-h-harder than m-m-most people think. A lot of k-k-kids in my cl-cl-class couldn’t get theirs to grow,” Evan speaks up, he was proud of his green thumb, even if it meant Connor was going to say something mean, and he wanted to leave a somewhat redeeming impression on Larry and Cynthia.

“It’s lovely Evan. It’ll look perfect in the kitchen window. Lots of sunshine!”, Cynthia exclaims back to being pretend-happy as if there wasn’t a palpable tension still in the room. No one says anything after that, and Evan doesn’t have the heart to tell Cynthia African violets need indirect sunlight or else the leaves would burn. 

The silence echoes through the room, making the clinking of utensils and glasses unbearable. Evan had always assumed social interactions became awkward because of him, but he’s pretty sure he’s not responsible this time, and if this was how it was all time within the Murphy household, then he understands even more than he did before, Zoe’s need to escape it. He glances in Zoe’s direction hoping to convey that they should try and leave sooner than they had originally planned. Zoe meets his eyes and nods slowly with understanding. 

“Well this has been nice, but me and Evan have tickets to a show tonight and it’s all the way on the other side of town, so we should probably get going”, Zoe says quickly while moving to get up. 

“Y-y-yeah, ummm, t-t-thank y-y-you Mr. and Mrs. Murphy for having me. It was, um, really, um, nice”, Evan stumbles through a polite thank you, following Zoe’s lead to get up and go. Neither anticipate Connor exploding up from his seat as well yelling, “You never told me that Zoe was getting to leave tonight. I could’ve missed this shitshow tonight, but you made me stay and now Zoe gets to leave with her stupid boyfriend? This is fucking bullshit!” He continues his rant, “Of course perfect Miss Zoe gets to do whatever she wants and “Crazy Connor” has to stay home. Set the table Connor. It’s an important night Connor. Be nice Connor. But no one tells Zoe what to do”. 

Connor starts walking towards Evan and Zoe, neither Cynthia nor Larry reaching out to stop him, Evan can’t really tell if it’s from fear or apathy towards his outburst. He and Zoe are no better, frozen in place standing by their chairs. Suddenly Connor lunges towards Zoe pushing her backwards, causing her to hit the arm of her chair hard with her wrist, shrieking in pain. Connor moves to grab her once more, when Evan steps in front of her and yells back, “Don’t fucking touch her again”, taking everyone in the room by surprise. 

Where was the seemingly meek boy who was stuttering about trees only 20 minutes ago? Evan’s outburst overshadows Connor’s leaving everyone in shock, even Connor, giving him time to crouch down and help Zoe up, wrapping his arms around her protectively. 

Zoe was clutching her wrist to her chest, unsure if it was broken or not, silent tears falling down her face. She looks at both Cynthia and Larry, who have yet to move from their seats and says icily, “I’m done”. 

Larry looking between Evan holding his daughter and his stunned son, says condescendingly, “Zoe don’t be so dramatic, everything has calmed down, stay and finish dinner with us.” 

Evan, who cannot fathom that Zoe’s _dad_ just said that to her, says in the steadiest voice he’s ever had, “We’re leaving and Zoe’s not coming back, until you guys get Connor serious help. You’re lucky she’s put up with this for so long.”\

Evan turns to Zoe, who was still crying, and leads her out of the room, leaving the rest of the stunned Murphys behind. He can’t believe how this girl who he loves so much, could be treated like this by her own family. When they reach the entry way, he drops his arms around her to help her slide her boots back on before putting his own shoes on. He returns one of his arms and uses the other to grab both their bags and her keys by the door, vaguely hearing shouting from the dining room. As they open the door, Cynthia comes from the hall, also crying now. She calls out, “Zoe-bug, you don’t have to go, we’ll get him help, start seeing a therapist again, it’ll be better, I promise.” 

Zoe, who had believed these empty promises before again and again, looked right into her mother’s eyes, calms her tears, and states, “I’ll come back if he’s gone and getting real help, not yoga and calming tea. Real help. Until then I’m staying with Evan. I just can’t do it anymore Mom”. 

Cynthia nods and just watches as her daughter leaves, tears streaming down her face.

=

When Zoe and Evan are safely in her bug, this time Evan in the driver’s side and Zoe in the passenger, Evan pulls her into an even tighter hug—if that was even possible—and starts apologizing, while Zoe leans into his shoulder and starts crying again. 

“Zo, I’m so sorry. I never should have come over. You knew something bad was going to happen and, and, I convinced you it’d be okay and it wasn’t. It wasn’t at all. Your arm might be broken, Connor’s in a rage fit, and your parents…I’m just so so sorry Zoe”, Evan says tears of his own starting to fall. 

Zoe takes her time breathing deeply, nuzzling into Evan, before she looks up to him, and says, “Evan, you don’t need to apologize. You don’t know how much you’ve done. This has been going on for so long, and, you stood up to Connor…and my parents and helped break this horrible loop I’ve been stuck in. I wouldn’t have been able to leave without you. I, I don’t know what’s going to happen next, if they’ll actually do it or not, but believe it or not I actually feel better than I have in a really long time. I’m not in this hell alone, for the first time. Even if my arm hurts like bitch”. 

All throughout Zoe’s speech Evan had been rubbing her back and trying to stop his own tears. He laughs a little at Zoe use of an expletive, not usually her style, and finally says, “I would do anything for you Zoe. Literally anything, if it meant you felt happy, safe, and, and…” he pauses then adds, “loved” in a tiny whisper, looking her in the eye. 

They stay frozen in that moment, looking into each other’s eyes as if the whole world around them had disappeared, still parked in the Murphy driveway. Zoe’s eye’s flicker down towards Evan’s mouth, then back up to his hazel eyes. Like magnets they’re drawn together, meeting in the middle, for a perfect sweet kiss, that ended much sooner than either of them would have liked. Breaking apart they just looked at each other smiling, blushes creeping up both their faces, knowing that they didn’t need to say anything to know exactly what the other was feeling.

Evan starts the car and pulls out of the driveway, deciding they could talk more at his house, that leaving the Murphy’s sooner rather than later is probably for the best. And he’s pretty sure Heidi was getting home earlier tonight around 8, and she’d be able to look at Zoe’s arm, and they’d have to explain to her what happened and why Zoe would be staying with them for a while. 

Their lives just became increasingly more complicated, but also somehow much simpler. They had each other to lean on—no matter what—tonight’s debacle clearly proving that, and what ever life was going to throw at them next, they’d be strong enough to face it together.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eeeek! Evan faced Connor, Larry, and Cynthia Murphy, a brave boy. Zoe has set an ultimatum for her family, so we'll see if they follow through. And a cute kiss at the end because my BandTrees heart can't take it :) 
> 
> Next up will be Evan and Zoe talking with Heidi and talking to each other about their relationship.


	5. We'll Take It Slow and Grow as We Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Zoe and Evan tell Heidi about what happened at the Murphy's. Evan and Zoe talk about their relationship.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everyone! I think this chapter is pretty cute and I hope you enjoy it! I think I'll be wrapping most things up next chapter and then a shorter epilogue. I'm really proud of this story because it's the first one I've ever written and it's been a great reprieve from my PhD work, so I've been loving the positive responses. As always, I'm always welcome to comments both positive and constructive critiques!

Evan and Zoe drove in comfortable silence for the short drive to Evan’s house, listening to Zoe’s emergency playlist, which had started automatically through her Bluetooth. Zoe’s hummed along to some of the songs, but her mind was somewhere else. Every time Evan glanced over at her, she was staring out the window, holding her hurt arm close to her chest. Evan could tell she was probably in pain as the area around her wrist was starting to turn a nasty bluish-purple and was still swollen, but she said nothing, used to downplaying her injuries. 

Evan had never been more relived to see his mom’s Corolla in the driveway of their house. She must have gotten home a little early from work. He pulled in next to his mom’s car and killed the engine. Evan had a weird sense of déjà vu, sitting in Zoe’s car anticipating meeting one of their parents and needing to perk each other up. Had it really only been 2 hours since getting to the Murphy's? 

Evan turned to Zoe who hadn’t moved yet, unclicked his seatbelt and gently laid a hand on shoulder saying, “We can tell my mom as much or as little as you want. I just wanted to tell you that I’m with you 100%. I’ll support you no matter what.” He finished his declaration by leaning over and sweetly kissing her check. He figured since they’d just _kissed_ kissed that platonic kisses were now on the table in terms of casual affection. 

Zoe looked up at him, unshed tears brimming her soft green eyes once more, and just hugged him as best she could with one arm. She nuzzled into his chest and whispered a soft, “Thank you”. 

They took one last moment in the embrace before splitting apart from each other, Zoe reaching down to unfasten her seatbelt, and Evan reaching behind to grab their bags. When they had both gotten out of the car, Evan put his arm around her protectively again and they walked up his driveway. 

At the door, Evan fished around his bag for his house key, taking much longer than necessary because he was holding both their bags and refused to let go of his hold around Zoe. Finally, he manages to get his keys and open his front door. When they get into the entryway, Evan sets down their bags and hears his mom from the kitchen, “Evan is that you? I thought you’d be home later. How was dinner? How was the movie?” The questions kept coming as Heidi appeared in front of them. She immediately noticed Zoe clutching her wrist and her tear stained face, then notices Evan’s arms encasing her. 

“Dinner w-w-wasn’t exactly great”, Evan said carefully, still unsure how much Zoe wanted to tell his mom, “Zoe’s arm got hurt and we were hoping you might know if it’s broken or not.” 

Technically he was telling the truth, he was just leaving out some major details, his first priority now switching over to Zoe’s immediate care. He needed to know whether or not they needed to take her to the hospital.

“Of course, dear. Come into the light, let me see”, Heidi says calmly, voice switching to what Evan called her “patient voice” and starts walking towards the kitchen. Evan gently leads to Zoe to the kitchen and nudges her to sit down on one of the stools where his mom is waiting for her. Zoe releases her hold on her injured arm and gives it over to Heidi’s waiting hands. Evan grabs her now free hand and gives it a tight squeeze of support. 

Heidi examines Zoe’s arm, the bruising and swelling not looking great, but she was able to move her fingers around and twist her wrist. 

“Well, good news is I don’t think it’s broken, just badly bruised. I’ll get you some ibuprofen and an ice pack, when it’s a little more numb from the ice, we’ll put arnica gel on it. If tomorrow it doesn’t look at least a little better, your parents should take you to the doctor”, Heidi decides, gently placing Zoe’s arm on to the counter and then rummaging through their medicine cabinet for the painkillers. As Heidi goes to get Zoe a glass of water to swallow the pills, she looks over to see Evan’s arms around Zoe once more and her leaning into him and she can’t help but smile just a little, they looked like puzzle pieces, perfectly together. She wasn’t sure what circumstances brought them home early tonight with an almost broken arm, but she was glad they had each other. 

“Here Zoe take these, and we’re going to keep the ice on 15 minutes at a time for at least an hour. How does that sound hun?”, Heidi asks still using her patient voice. Zoe nods and takes the medicine from Heidi and swallowing them quickly, allowing Heidi to gently place the ice pack on her arm, hissing at the sensation. Evan moves even closer to her, even though he can’t really do anything about Zoe’s physical hurt. 

“You two have been pretty mum tonight and I don’t want to rush you or force you to tell me anything, but I would really appreciate one of you telling me what happened,” Heidi tells them tenderly, pulling up their other stool to sit across from Zoe. 

Evan knows that Zoe had stopped actively crying during the drive over, but then her expression had looked dazed and unsure and now it was steeled over with determination. Evan knew she could do it; she had done it before, told him about everything. Zoe looks up at Evan and he nods in encouragement, squeezing her hand once more in support. “Well, dinner was going alright, terrible actually, but mostly just awkward and tense. Me and Evan tried to leave early, when Connor, my brother, he just, he just lost it. He tried to push me to the ground, but I hit my arm instead, and he lunged for me again when Evan stepped in and stopped him”, Zoe recounts, taking a couple deep breaths. Heidi’s eyes widen in surprise to hear that Evan stood up to someone but soften when she sees Zoe has more to say. 

“And,” Zoe pauses struggling to say what needs to be said and finally admits to Heidi, “And, and this isn’t the first time something like this has, has happened”. 

“Zoe are you saying that Connor is violent often?” Heidi asks not accusingly, but in a way that Evan and Zoe knew that she was just making sure she understood completely.

Zoe nods and adds, “He can’t really control his anger, so he takes it out on me or sometimes on stuff that’s important to me”. 

“Honey, do your parents know that tonight wasn’t the first time Connor’s done this?” Heidi poses softly, her brain spinning with sympathy and love for the girl sitting in front of her. 

“Yeah they’ve known about it since it started a little over a year ago,” Zoe says sadly. Even Evan hadn’t known the abuse had been going on that long, he had only really started noticing her bruises a couple months ago. “They just don’t do anything about it,” Zoe adds quietly. 

“Mom, you should have seen her dad, he told us to sit back down after I yelled at Connor. That Zoe was just being dramatic”, Evan piped up after quietly listening and supporting Zoe through telling Heidi. 

Heidi stood up from her chair and wrapped her arms around Zoe too, and Evan followed suit until she was the center of a Hansen Oreo-hug. It’d been a long time since Zoe had felt this loved. Heidi pulls back slightly to look down at Zoe, kisses her hair and says, “Zoe you’re a wonderful girl and I’m so sorry this has been happening to you. Don’t for a second believe any of this is your fault. I’m so glad you told me and that took a lot of courage. I’ll do anything I can to help. And I’d like to take a picture of your arm, would that be okay?” 

“Why?”, Evan and Zoe ask at the same time, looking confused at Heidi. 

“Well sometimes in cases like this, it’s best to have a record, in case you want to do something. I’m not saying you have to, and I won’t do anything with it without your permission. But when things like this happen to patients at the hospital, they have the hospital record, and you won’t have that, so other evidence is needed,” Heidi explains slowly, until realization dawns on both Evan and Zoe. 

“Okay you can take a picture,” Zoe says, “But I don’t want to do anything, right now at least”. Heidi nods her head and removes the ice pack gently from Zoe’s arm to snap a few pictures, before setting it back. 

“So, Mom, I, uh, may have also y-y-yelled at the Murphy’s that Zoe wasn’t coming b-b-back until they did something about C-C-Connor. Is it okay that she stays with us?” Evan asks apprehensively, not knowing what he’d do if his mom said no. 

“Of course, dear,” Heidi says to Evan before turning to Zoe, “You’re more than welcome to stay here as long as needed. Whatever you need to feel safe, we’ll do it”. 

Evan lets out a deep breath that he didn’t even realize he was holding and had never been more thankful that his mom was his mom. Evan feels Zoe drop his hand to stand up and fully hug Heidi mumbling against her, “Thank you so much Heidi, for everything”.

Heidi just returns the hug, holding her tighter. In an attempt to turn the night around, Heidi releases Zoe letting her return to Evan’s side, “How about sundaes and an actual movie for the rest of tonight? Huh, how does that sound? I just got some strawberry ice cream because Evan mentioned it was your favorite.” 

“That sounds g-g-great Mom, thanks”, Evan replies for both of them. 

“Why don’t you guys go change into something comfier and I’ll whip up these sundaes, Zoe do you need pajamas?” Heidi asks sweetly. Zoe shakes her head no, she figured she would borrow something from Evan or find something she might’ve left here. “When you get back, we’ll put the ice back, okay?” 

Zoe nodded that she understood and followed Evan into his room down the hall. When they were both inside Evan closed the door quietly, he figured tonight of all nights his mom would let the closed-door slide. Evan turned to Zoe, who was looking decidedly less fragile by the minute and asks, “I know this is a d-dumb question, so I’m sorry but, how are you, uh, holding up, with, uh, everything?”

“I’m okay,” Zoe says, and Evan looks at her incredulously, so she continues, “I swear Ev, my arm feels a little better, and despite everything, I feel like a weight has been lifted. I feel relieved. I feel seen and heard. I feel loved, by your mom and… by you”, she says the last part looking up at him through her lashes, taking a step closer to him. And just like in Zoe’s car, they both lean in, meeting each other halfway in a picture-perfect kiss. But unlike earlier, they weren’t constrained by the car console, so Evan slide his hands around her waist, pulling her closer effectively deepening their kiss. As someone who’d never kissed anyone before tonight, Evan’s surprised by how good and natural it felt to kiss Zoe. He’d always assumed kissing would be awkward, made so by him in particular, but he thinks he could kiss Zoe forever and never be tired of it. They break apart to get some much-needed air and look back each other with dreamy looks in their eyes.

“I think I could kiss you forever if you let me Zoe Murphy,” Evan says sheepishly, not letting go of her waist. 

“I think I’d let you,” Zoe giggles back kissing him lightly on the nose, before going back in to kiss him properly again. 

They’re broken out of the moment when they hear Heidi yell, “Are you guys coming? The ice cream is ready. I’m going to look for a movie!” 

They let go of each other reluctantly and Evan yells back, “We’re almost ready. Hold on!”. He walks over to his dresser and pulls out a pair of flannel pajama pants and a t-shirt for himself, and an extra pair of pants for Zoe. He turns to his clean clothes basket and retrieves Zoe’s jazz band sweatshirt she’d left a couple days ago. Evan hands her the clothes then awkwardly stands there unsure of what to do. Is he supposed to leave? She knows where the bathroom is, was she going to leave? He didn’t want to like freak her out by staring at her or anything. They only just kissed today, and he was pretty sure normal couples didn’t move that fast. Oh god, were they a couple now? 

“Evan were you going to change?”, Zoe asks him, removing him from his internal crisis. He blinks rapidly, trying to clear his head, when he notices Zoe has already changed. He was too busy panicking to notice she’d already done the thing he was worried about. Zoe now noticing his anxiety about changing, turns around and adds a flirty, “Don’t worry I won’t look…probably ”, causing Evan to blush profusely.

Evan changes as fast as he can hoping that Zoe isn’t peeking, but also kind of hoping she was. Hormones and anxiety were a weird combination. Maybe he’d talk to her about it later, but for now he didn’t want to keep his mom waiting. When he’s done, he walks up to Zoe and kisses her cheek, grabbing her hand intertwining their fingers, letting her know that he wasn’t completely freaking out about her flirty-ness, only mildly freaking out. Zoe smiles and opens the door, shutting off the lights, and pulls Evan towards the living room. 

Heidi was waiting for them with three bowls of strawberry ice cream topped with hot fudge, whip cream, and rainbow sprinkles. “How about a comedy movie? How does that sound kiddos?”, Heidi asks cheerfully, “I was thinking _Late Night_ , me and Evan were going to watch it soon and I just love that Mindy Kaling, she’s so funny”. 

“That sounds great Mom”, Evan says reaching for the bowls, ready to hand one to Zoe when she was settled into the loveseat. Evan sits down next to her, making sure her arm was comfortable, because eventually she’d have to put the ice back on. Heidi smiles at Evan fretting over Zoe’s placement in the loveseat as she settles into the chair across from them. 

==

After the movie and 2 ½ episodes of _Brooklyn Nine-Nine_ Heidi sees the droopy eyes of the two teens and decides to call it a night. “Okay kids, I think it’s time for bed. Zoe I’ll get some blankets and an extra pillow for you. I hope the couch is okay for now. I’ll grab you a toothbrush too,” Heidi says, starting to get up and head for the hall closet. 

“Um, Zoe could just st-st-stay in my room,” Evan quickly stammers out, looking everywhere but at his mom. “I’ll sleep on the f-f-floor and Zoe can have my bed. It’ll be more comfortable for her and she’ll be closer to both of us in case anything is wrong tonight and I just think it’s a better plan,” Evan rapid-fire gives excuses to Heidi, who under different circumstances probably would have insisted on one of them being in the living room, but tonight she obliges without much of a fight. 

“Okay, but two conditions: Evan you will stay on the floor and the door will stay open the whole time,” Heidi states calmly, oblivious to the fact they had sleepovers frequently when she worked nightshifts. The open-door policy made both Evan and Zoe blush, it’s not like they were going to do _anything_ , especially not if Heidi was home. After some awkward looks between Evan, Heidi, and Zoe, Heidi finally says, “Well I’ll put some blankets in your room Evan, and you can grab Zoe a toothbrush from under the sink. Go get ready for bed”. 

Evan and Zoe walk to the bathroom where they brush their teeth side-by-side and take turns washing their faces. When Zoe slept over before she always put her things back into her overnight bag, but tonight she placed her toothbrush in the cup next to Evan’s and he couldn’t help but admire the set, a reminder that Zoe was here and safe and with him. Evan’s wave of sentimentality causes him to lean over and kiss Zoe’s cheek while she was braiding her hair back. 

“What was that for?”, Zoe asks, wrapping a hair-tie around the bottom of her braid. 

“Just because”, Evan replies, cheekily adding “So’s this one”, before kissing her for real. They break apart giggling, when Zoe stands on her tiptoes to kiss Evan’s cheek, saying, “So we’re even now”. 

Evan shakes his head laughing and tugs Zoe along to his room, where Heidi is waiting by a pile of blankets that are a noticeable distance from Evan’s bed . 

“Okay, there’s extra pillows and blankets. And Zoe, I put some more medicine on Evan’s side table in case you wake up and your arm is bothering you. You can take two more tonight. If you need anything, anything at all, I’ll be just down the hall. I have to work pretty early tomorrow, so I might miss you both in the morning, but I should be home a little earlier like tonight and we can talk more,” Heidi tells them, looking around the room, doubling checking they had everything they needed for the night. 

Evan stepped away from Zoe to wrap his arms around his mom in a tight hug. “Thank you, Mom, for being here, for being you, for everything tonight, I love you,” Evan whispers to his mom, pulling back from the hug. They both look over to Zoe who’s standing in the doorway shifting back and forth, unsure where she fit into the moment Evan and Heidi were having. Heidi, with her all-knowing mom-sense, waves for Zoe to join them, and wraps an arm around her too. She plants a kiss to both Evan and Zoe’s heads adding motherly, “I love both of you. Sleep well and I’ll see you tomorrow.” 

“Goodnight Mom” and “Goodnight Heidi” blur together from both Zoe and Evan, as Heidi leaves Evan’s room. Evan moves the gratuitously placed blanket pile much closer to the bed, while Zoe climbs in under the covers and switches the side lamp on. Evan walks over to shut the lights off and instead of sitting on the floor, he climbs into the bed and lays next to Zoe, _on top of the covers_ , he wasn’t too keen on fully breaking his mom’s rules the first night Zoe was staying with them.

Evan turns so he’s facing Zoe and starts to fiddle with the end of her braid, struggling to piece together words he so clearly wants to ask her. Zoe waits patiently tracing tiny figures into Evan’s arm, until he says, “Hey Zo, can I ask you something?”

She nods and continues her doodles on his arm, but now looks up at him to meet his gaze. “Um, what, uh, are w-we? Cause like yesterday I would have said were best friends, but after tonight I feel like we’re more than that, and we haven’t talked about it yet, and I’ve never had anything like this, this special with anyone before, and I don’t really know what to do”, Evan gets out all in one breath, ready to spiel more out, when Zoe presses her lips against his in a chaste kiss, effectively silencing Evan’s rambles. 

“Well first-off I think we’ll always be best friends, and I think we get to pick anything that comes after that. I don’t have any experience with this stuff either Ev, so we get to learn as we go. I think officially dating is a good starting place”, Zoe explains, “I don’t think it’ll be any different than how we already are, except now we can do this whenever,” she finishes and leans over to place soft kisses all over his face, making him giggle and relax. 

“Yeah I’d be okay with that”, Evan laughs and kisses her again, letting it go much further than Zoe’s earlier kiss. They continue like this for a while. Kissing. Talking. Cuddling. And Zoe is right, they fall back into their regular sleepover antics, with the added benefit of more and more affection. 

Around midnight Evan figures they should actually try to sleep, and it had been an exhausting day, so he sadly gets off his bed, kissing Zoe one last time, before settling into the blankets on the ground and turning off the lamp. He can see Zoe’s outline from the dim streetlights outside, and he watches her turn around to face the edge of the bed, looking down at him. 

He could tell Zoe was drifting off by the way her body was relaxing, when she sleepily says, “Hey Ev, I love you”. His heart swells with adoration for her and he reaches up to grab her hand that was dangling off the bed, kisses it and says back, “I love you too Zoe, more than you could possibly know”. Zoe smiles sleepily at him and lets her eyes close. 

And when Heidi checks on them in the morning, she sees Zoe’s arm hanging off the bed and Evan’s right below it, they had fallen asleep holding hands. Heidi knows the next couple of days will be tense with Zoe’s family, but right now she’s glad the two teens were at ease.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope you all enjoyed the fluff, especially the "I love you's"! I think next Zoe will confront Cynthia and Evan and Zoe will head back to school as an official couple. Exciting stuff! Stay tuned!


	6. Now Your Heart Is In My Hands, I Won't Give It Up

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan and Zoe go to get Zoe's stuff from the Murphy's.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I changed my user name, I don'y have any other fics so it's not a big deal, but I really like the new one it's something I used to say to people all the time trying to spell my name! I know I said this would be the last chapter but.....apparently I lied. I started writing and somehow got to almost 5,000 words with only covering four sentences of my basic outline, soooooooo there will be at least two more chapters after this one at this point. I'm not mad about about and hopefully you guys aren't either! This chapter is pretty fluffy with some drama. As always I hope you're enjoying reading this story and feel free to leave any comments or message me anything. Positive and constructive are both welcome! Happy reading!

Zoe wakes up before Evan with her arm feeling tender, so she reaches over to take the pills Heidi left for her last night. She didn’t really want to wake Evan up just yet, he looked so peaceful sleeping and not worrying about her for once. She quietly sneaks out of bed to grab Evan’s laptop before returning to her warm blanket pile. She logged on—yeah, she knew Evan’s password _OakTree19_ , his favorite tree and his birthday date (not very original, but very Evan) and opened a Chrome tab. She knew her parents would never do what she needed if she didn’t nudge them every step of the way, so she carefully searched “rehabilitation centers for teenagers” and scrolled through the search pages, keeping the tab open for any of them she thought might be okay. 

When Zoe had about six potential options, she noticed Evan starting to stir awake, so she sets the laptop aside and lies down, so her head is near the edge of the bed, watching him as he wakes up. 

Evan’s eyes flicker open and he sees Zoe staring at him from the bed above, and he can’t help but smile up at her. “Morning Zo,” Evan says while sitting up, his voice raspy from sleep, “You could’ve woken me up earlier, if you wanted”. 

“It’s okay, I was looking up some stuff, and you looked so cute sleeping, I didn’t want to ruin it”, Zoe tell him and rolls over so he could join her on the bed. 

“You couldn’t ruin anything, even if you tried”, Evan responds climbing onto the bed and kissing her gently on the cheek. “What were you looking up?”

Zoe grabs the laptop, placing in back in her lap, tilting it so Evan could see better. “Rehab centers for Connor. I know my parents won’t really think I’m serious unless I show them places and force them to pay attention. Can we print some of these to bring to my mom later?”, Zoe asks, playing with the end of her braid, clearly uneasy about having to go back to her house. 

“Sure. I’ll go print these, why don’t you text your mom? Maybe ask her to tell you when your dad and Connor are gone, then we can go” Evan says, rubbing her shoulder, trying the best he could to comfort her, before he adds devilishly, “Or we could skip school Monday and go then”.

“Evan Hansen, you delinquent, we’re not skipping school,” Zoe laughs hitting his arm playfully, considering what he said, “That’s a good idea though. I don’t want to run into Connor or my dad today”. 

“Let me know what she says, and I’ll print these. Be right back,” Evan says kissing Zoe’s cheek one more time, before getting up and taking his laptop. He was aware they were pretty “touchy” as friends, but Evan loved the new freedom that came with being _official_ , he wasn’t worried he was going to freak her out by kissing her or cuddling up with her or telling her how pretty she is. Despite the circumstances of them getting together he was ecstatic that it finally happened. 

Evan connected his laptop to the printer on his mom’s desk with the cord—they had an old printer, no wifi printing for the Hansens—and quickly printed the webpages Zoe had open. He leaves them in the printer and his laptop on the desk and goes into the kitchen to grab Zoe and himself breakfast. Evan’s delighted to find that his mom had gotten chocolate muffins—another one of Zoe’s favorites—when she was at the store the day before, it’s like Heidi Hansen had a sixth sense or something, just knew that Zoe would be here. He grabs two and puts them in the microwave, just enough so they’re warm and slightly melty before heading back into his room. 

When Evan walks in, he finds Zoe on the phone, presumably with her mom, looking very annoyed, so much for their peaceful morning. He sets their breakfast on his end table, and crawls up next to Zoe, grabbing her hand and intertwining their fingers, showing his support. Zoe smiles at him before going back to her conversation. 

“Jesus Christ Mom, can’t you just text me when Connor and Dad aren’t home? Is that really too much to ask? I don’t want them there when I pick up some stuff”, Zoe huffs starting to get upset. She’s silent for a bit and Evan can hear the muffled voice of Cynthia through the phone, saying something along the lines of “You wouldn’t need to pick up stuff if you’d just come home”. Evan can’t believe that Zoe’s family were still in such denial. 

“Mom, you know I can’t do that. Please just tell me when they’re gone, please”, Zoe begs, and by the sound of it, Cynthia finally relents and Zoe wraps up with, “Thank you. I’ll see you later today. Bye”. 

Zoe hangs up, tossing her phone on the bed, and sighs deeply leaning into Evan. “I brought you a muffin. It’s chocolate if that makes anything better”, Evan says, handing her one of them, but knowing it really wouldn’t make anything better for her. 

“It does a little, thank you”, Zoe says reaching up to kiss his cheek, then starts picking at the chocolate chips on top of her muffin, “I just wish for once my mom would be on my side unconditionally, see that everything is not okay and I’m not insane for wanting to get away from it all”. 

“You’re not insane Zo, if anything it’s your parents who are insane. They shouldn’t have put any of this on you and should have dealt with Connor a long, long time ago. I love you and you deserve to be happy and safe and, um, I’ll tell you that everyday if I have to,” Evan says blushing a little. Yeah, they had said “I love you” last night, but they were pretty sleepy, what if Zoe didn’t remember? 

But he should’ve known better, Zoe calms all his worries when she responds with “Thanks Ev, I love you too, you’re the best thing that’s ever happened to me”, sitting up fully to kiss him properly. Evan kisses her back fervently, pouring all his love for her into one kiss, hoping she can feel it. When they break away, Zoe looks happier, so Evan leans in one more time for a shorter sweeter kiss, to brighten her spirits obviously, no ulterior motives whatsoever on his part. 

They spend the remainder of the morning cuddled up in Evan’s bed talking because whenever they were together neither of them ran out of things to say. Around 11, Zoe decides they should probably get up and get presentable because she figured her dad and Connor would probably be gone around 12:30, off to the country club and to meet drug dealers respectively she tells Evan. He laughs trying to keep the moment light but knowing fully-well that she was serious. 

“Zo, you can grab anything you want to wear from my mom’s closet, she won’t mind”, Evan tells her, as he notices her contemplating wearing yesterday’s clothes or trying to make a pair of Evan’s too-big sweatpants fashionable. She nods her head and leaves Evan’s bedroom to hopefully find some leggings or some jeans to pair with one of her sweaters that was already there. 

By noon, they were both ready to go, just waiting for Cynthia to text Zoe that it was okay to head over. Evan looked over to Zoe, who had taken her hair out of it’s braid, leaving soft waves in it’s place, and the sun was streaming through the window shining on her just right and Evan can’t help but blurt out, “Zoe you’re so beautiful, I should tell you that every day”. 

Zoe blushes, accepting the compliment and offering back, “You’re quite handsome too, you know”. She steps closer to him and intertwines their hands, reaching up to kiss him when her phones chimes, interrupting their moment. She let’s go of one hand to read the text, leaving the other wrapped with his. 

**12:13 P.M. Mom** : Your dad left to go golfing and I haven’t seen Connor or his car around. You can head over when you’re ready. Love, Mom 

“We’ve got the all clear from my mom, Connor and my dad shouldn’t be home”, Zoe says squeezing Evan’s hand, still looking a little uneasy.

“We can do this, and I know I said that last night too and that was tremendously awful, but I really think today will be okay. It’s just your mom and she might be a handful but not impossible and we’re just picking up clothes and some of your things so we shouldn’t be there too long and maybe we can do something more fun afterwards, I don’t know…” Evan quickly says, unsure of what he could say to try to make Zoe feel more secure about going to her house. 

Zoe interrupts his ramble by gently breaking their hands apart and wrapping both around him, pulling him in closer, replying, “I know Ev, I think it’ll be okay too. I’m just a little on edge because how my mom was this morning on the phone, and I know she’ll try and convince us that I should stay. I know we can get through it; we can do anything together”. 

Zoe lifts her head off its resting place on Evan’s shoulder looking up at him asking quietly, “But, do you mind driving? My arm still feels sore and I think I need the drive to focus on what I’m going to say to my mom.” 

“Of course, you have to pick the music though,” Evan teases, kissing her nose playfully, adding “Anything is possible when listening to a Zoe Murphy playlist”. 

==

The drive to the Murphy’s was quiet, but not unpleasant. Zoe picked her “Focus” playlist which included softer acoustic covers or indie songs, some of them being her own recordings, which were Evan’s favorite to hear, even though nothing beat listening to Zoe sing and play live. Zoe looked out the window the whole way, similar to the night before, but in a more deliberate way, Evan could see the wheels turning in her head, trying to plan for every scenario that might happen. Evan admired her steadfastness, if he was in her position, he probably would have let his anxiety overtake his every thought, but there she was strong and determined to make the situation better for herself, no matter the cost. He couldn’t believe that she allowed him to be a major part of her life. 

As they pulled into the Murphy’s driveway there was less trepidation than the evening before and more resolve to face whatever was coming and get through it. What could possibly be worse than yesterday? Evan and Zoe get out of her bug and walk hand in hand up to and through the front door. Evan notices Zoe doesn’t drop her bag or take off her shoes like yesterday, so he doesn’t either, it’s not like they’d be there long anyway. 

Zoe doesn’t call out to her mom, only pulls Evan along up the stairs to her room. Evan’s in awe of Zoe’s room, everything in it screaming _her_. The lilac walls splattered with gold, her record player in a big white cube shelf, filled with records and other knickknacks, her queen bed with fluffy white pillows, a gold vanity with white flowers carefully attached around the mirror, and his favorite he decides is the gold constellations painted on her ceiling, so quintessentially Zoe. She walks into her walk-in closet tugging Evan in too, and grabs two matching floral duffel bags, asking Evan kindly “Could you fold what I hand you and put them in the bags?” 

Evan nods his head in agreement as Zoe starts pulling clothes off hangers handing them to him, then moves on to her drawers where she packs the second bag with pajamas, undershirts, bras, panties, basically everything that Evan didn’t need to necessarily see. In a couple minutes, they’re both done, and Zoe grabs one more smaller bag to take to the bathroom with her. “Ev, could you pack my make-up? Everything that’s in the top drawer and the little bag is in the second draw. I’m going to get my stuff from the bathroom,” Zoe says without waiting to see Evan’s response and heading off to the bathroom. 

Evan goes ahead to pack her make-up bag and he was definitely confused about what all the products were for, but she had said everything so, he carefully puts all the little tubes and brushes and one large box that just said _NAKED 2_ on it into the bag Zoe mentioned. When he’s done, he places it by the duffel bags and starts to wander through Zoe’s room. He wanted to bring some of her stuff stuff with them, things that she just liked, but didn’t need. He thought they might make her feel like his home could be her home too. He finds a plain canvas tote bag and proceeds to place a few things in it from her shelf like her favorite vinyl records (even though they couldn’t take the player), an ornately decorated frame with a picture she had taken of them at the orchard, a slightly raggedy looking purple bunny stuffed animal, her song and sketch books, and lastly a plainer frame with the saying “Today at least you’re you, and that’s enough” written in sparkly blue on the inside. He figured the last one she might need to see a little more often as of late. He wishes he could take everything, transport her whole room to his house, do anything to change the circumstances she was in. 

Zoe returns with a bag overstuffed with her various hair and body products, straightener and curling iron, and some hair accessories and grabs one of the duffel bags. Evan walks over to her, trying to be a calming presence as she was starting to look frantic, and asks, “Is everything okay? If you think you have everything we can leave.” 

“Yeah, I think I have everything for now, and yes, we should leave, and if we’re quiet enough we might not even run into my mom and I can leave those printouts on the end table by the door. I don’t know, I felt okay in the car but being here is making me feel anxious and jumpy. It’s usually me calming your worries, not the other way around”, Zoe says shifting the weight of her two bags back and forth. 

“And now it’s my turn to calm your worries”, Evan whispers sweetly, walking over to kiss her forehead, “Now let’s be as sneaky as we can”. Evan knew that even though Zoe prepared herself to talk to her mom, she really didn’t want to do it, at least not yet, so he would help sneak out to the best of his abilities. Evan grabs the remainder of the bags, and they leave Zoe’s room quietly. They make it down the stairs and almost to the front door when they hear the cheery voice of Cynthia call out, “Zoe is that you?”

“Shit”, Zoe mutters under her breath, they had been so close, but responds to her mother “We were just leaving.” 

Cynthia appears in the foyer, faster than Evan thought was possible, and very different from the night before, Cynthia barely acknowledges that he’s there, making beeline for Zoe, trying to hug her. 

“Leaving? I didn’t even know you had gotten home yet, and why do you have so much stuff? Surely you don’t need all that for a couple days?”, Cynthia asks, seeming to accept that Zoe was staying with Evan, but still pretending like it was a weekend getaway and that nothing had happened, as if Evan hadn’t seen her crying last night promising Zoe they’d get Connor help.

“Mom”, Zoe says in a stern voice that Evan had never heard come from her, “You know it’s not for a couple days. I’m not coming back until he’s gone, better, or dead, I guess. I don’t care how long it takes, maybe until I graduate, who knows, but I’m not living like this anymore”. 

“Like what, Zoe? Like someone who’s been provided for her whole life?”, Cynthia says starting to raise her voice, still denying that their home life was anything but perfect, that Connor hadn’t almost broken her arm the night before. Evan now understood better than ever how the cycle went. Connor lashes out. Zoe gets hurt. Their parents make empty promises. Zoe believes them. Repeat. A never-ending loop. Until now. 

Cynthia’s condescending tone and blatant denial makes Zoe madder than Evan’s ever seen her, and it breaks his heart when she yells back, “Like someone who’s been emotionally and physically abused by her brother while her parents did nothing. Connor almost killed me once and you guys stood idly by. When you and dad finally feel like being real parents to both me and Connor, I’ll come back but not before then.” 

Cynthia stood stunned by Zoe’s outburst, and maybe finally coming to the realization that _everything was not okay_ , when Zoe grabs the rehab printouts from her bag and shoves them into Cynthia’s hands saying flatly, “Maybe one of these will work for a drug-addicted emotionally disturbed teen”. She turns to leave giving Evan a look that he should follow, and together they walk out the door, leaving Cynthia Murphy behind. 

==

When they arrive back at the Hansen home, Zoe is barely holding it together, trying not to break down but tears escape anyways and soon turn into sobs until she collapses by the foot of Evan’s bed. Evan immediately drops the bags he was holding and rushes to gather her up in his arms. He’s reminded of that day, so long ago where he held her in the orchard sobbing while she told him about Connor. He whispers little nothings to her and rubs soothing circles into her back and on her head but doesn’t try to get her to stop. She needed a chance to process everything and the release the emotions, a catharsis in a safe place. 

When Zoe is finished crying, Evan wipes the remaining tears away with his thumbs and kisses her forehead lovingly, before asking, “Do you want to talk about it?” and fighting the urge to offer a million other options to her. Zoe shakes her head no and that’s okay with Evan, they would talk about it eventually. 

“Do you want to unpack? I moved some stuff around earlier when you were looking through my mom’s things, so there’s room in my dresser and closet for your stuff”, Evan tells her, hoping to lift some sadness out of the room. Zoe looks at him like it’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever done her, make space for her, and instead of answering she nods yes, and kisses him. 

Evan kisses back surprised by her actions but happy to show her that yes, everything could and would be okay if they stood by each other. They break apart and Evan helps Zoe to her feet and they both grab a duffel bag each, ready to “move Zoe in”. He shows her the bottom drawer he’d cleared out for most of her foldable things and Zoe set in on filling it up, while Evan started to rehang as many of her hang-up clothes as he could with his limited number of hangers. 

Evan feels very at ease merging his and Zoe’s stuff together making what he had already considered “their” room even more so. He gets giddy at the thought of doing this with her down the road, moving in together, picking out pieces of furniture, waking up to her each and every day. He knows it’s a little early to be thinking these things, but he can’t help it, he just loves Zoe so much. 

He snaps out of his little daydream when Zoe appears next to him, having finished filling up her drawer. “What’s that dreamy expression for?” Zoe asks starting to return to her normal happier self. 

Evan blushes but tells her the truth anyways, “I was thinking about how much I want this in the future. Us. Living together. Sharing drawers and closets and a bed. I want to be with you forever”. 

“I want those things too Ev. So much,” Zoe says sweetly, adding somewhat cheekily, “Speaking of beds, do you think your mom will let you stay here for more than last night? Our sleepovers can be a little more fun now if you get to stay with me”. 

Evan chuckles in attempt to mask his ever-growing blush at her implications, and responds, “Well the nights she has graveyard shifts we can, but I don’t think when she’s here she wants me in the room. Did you see how far away she put the blankets last night? And that was me just being on the floor”. 

“Yeah, well I think we should go along with whatever she says for the nights she’s home, I don’t want her hating me”, Zoe says chuckling along with Evan, but with a slightly serious undertone, and if Evan wasn’t so in-tune to her he might not have noticed. 

“Zoe, my mom loves you, probably more than me, there’s nothing you could do to make her hate you, I promise. She probably just doesn’t want us doing anything, uh, intimate, before we’re ready and I can see that,” Evan says feeling very awkward talking about _intimate_ things. 

“Do you think you’re ready? For us to move towards that?”, Zoe asks also blushing profusely now, “Because I don’t know if I am or not”. She tried to not feel embarrassed because she was talking to Evan, sweet Evan who would never judge her either way. 

“Um, I don’t think I’m ready for that yet either”, Evan admits grabbing her hand and leading them both to sit on his bed, “I think we could move towards it at a pace that’s comfortable for both of us, but um, not the whole way yet. I wanted to talk to you last night and this morning about changing in front of each other, but I got too nervous and we had other things going on”.

“Did I make you uncomfortable last night? I know I usually change in the bathroom, but I didn’t and I’m sorry”, Zoe says looking down at their hands, starting to feel bad about possibly pushing Evan’s boundaries too far.

“No, you didn’t I swear. If I’m being completely honest, I was so caught up in my head I didn’t even notice. Then when I was changing, I was kind of hoping you’d peek even though I was nervous that you might, and all I could think about was that we should talk about it and there’s nobody I’d rather talk to than you, does that make sense? I’m sorry for rambling on like this” Evan apologizes to her, trying to meet her eyeline. 

“Okay, first we shouldn’t apologize so much to each other, and second I think we just keep checking with each other and see where we’re comfortable, we don’t have to rush anything. I don’t mind quick changes in front of you and obviously I’m okay with kissing and sleeping next to each other”, Zoe says trying to keep the blush from overtaking her whole body, before looking away from him and adding, “And maybe some touching while making out, if you’re okay with it”. 

“Zoe, I love you so much, I think we’re on the same wavelength, because I feel the same way. I didn’t want you to feel pressured or disappointed because I wasn’t ready. But I feel so much better talking to you about it. I don’t why I was so nervous”, Evan replies reaching for her and kissing her. When they come up for air, both of them look so relived that they were on the same page and didn’t have to keep talking about it, probably a strong indication that neither of them were ready to move past where they were already comfortable. 

“I think we should finish unpacking”, Evan says breaking their serious moment. 

“What is there that’s left, I was going to move my make-up and bathroom stuff over tonight”, Zoe responds confused as to what Evan meant. 

“Well, I grabbed a few more things I thought you might like, to make my room more like our room, and I was going to ask my mom if maybe we could paint a wall in here too”, Evan tells her standing up to grabs the tote he filled earlier, showing her what he took. 

“Evan, you literally are the sweetest human being. I love you”, Zoe says happily, and Evan thinks he’d never get tired of hearing her say that to him. Zoe goes through the bag, placing the picture of them on Evan’s (their) end table and the other frame on his (their) desk, moving Bunny (she named her when she was two) to the bed, and hanging the records up as art with some tacks. Their room was finally coming together. 

== 

They spend the rest of the afternoon watching TV out in the living room, enjoying spending stress-free time together, until Heidi arrives home around 6, and she puts them to work chopping up ingredients for taco night. All three of them chatter on about the new drama at Heidi’s work, and she fills Zoe in on all the characters that Evan already knew too much about. By the time everything is cooked and ready to assemble both teens are smiling and laughing, a stark difference from Friday night’s “family” dinner at the Murphy’s. 

“How was your guy’s day? Zoe were you able to get some things from your house?”, Heidi asks kindly as they all sat down around the Hansen’s tiny table. 

“Yeah, Evan and I grabbed some of my stuff earlier in the afternoon and had fun unpacking it. Evan even brought some of my favorite things without me knowing to surprise me,” Zoe tells her smiling at Evan and deliberately leaving out the part where she and Cynthia were yelling at each other.

“I only grabbed Bunny and some pictures,” Evan adds to the conversation trying to be humble and down-play his thoughtfulness. Heidi was having none of it though and reached across the table to ruffle his hair and says, “It’s the little things that make all the difference Evan. That was very sweet of you.” She turns to look at Zoe again and asks, “So Zoe, you’re feeling settled then?”. 

Zoe nods her head yes and responds emotionally looking between her boyfriend and his mom, “Yes, Heidi, everything here is perfect, and I can’t thank either of you enough for your kindness and being exactly what I needed right now”.

Heidi sensing this was a mom-moment got up from her seat and walked over to give Zoe a big hug and ruffles her hair too, for good measure. “It’s our pleasure to have someone like you in our lives, Zoe, no need to thank us”. 

Zoe just nods her head hugging back and Heidi doesn’t let go of her until she feels Zoe start to pull back. Heidi returns to her seat and catches Evan squeezing Zoe’s hand under the table and smiles to herself. 

The rest of dinner conversation remains light and cheerful, with Heidi agreeing to let them paint one of Evan’s walls as long as it wasn’t too dark and they didn’t drip paint on anything, which launches them into an entire conversation discussing colors and designs and potentially a mural. Heidi hadn’t seen either of them so excited about something as simple as a wall in a very long time. 

After dinner, Evan and Zoe help Heidi clean up the kitchen, put away leftovers, and do the dishes, taking turns washing and drying. Zoe’s not sure what the future’s going to hold, if her parents will actually step up or not, but she revels in the feeling of being part of a loving family and soon let’s her own family’s drama slip from her mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Will the Murphy parents actually do anything about Connor??? Could Zoe and Evan be any cuter? Somehow I found myself writing their little conversation after unpacking about establishing boundaries and what they were comfortable with because sometimes I feel that authors (in general not just AO3 authors) push teenagers a little too soon into physical relationships, however with that being said I'm very sex-positive so when people are ready, they're ready and that's a personal decision, but my little 16 year-old Zoe and Evan are not and that's okay too (also I'm not ready to write it)! Hopefully it filled in some holes about me writing them as super close and having sleepovers to begin with (didn't think that all the way through when I wrote it). I felt like it was a little out of the blue so I wanted to explain my reasoning! Next up: Evan and Zoe head back to school where there may or may not be _confrontations_ with certain people. The. Drama. Continues.


	7. You Came Out of Nowhere and You Cut Through All the Noise

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan and Zoe get through a regular Sunday and head back to school on Monday. Connor confronts Evan. Jared and Evan talk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Y'all. This chapter was hard to write, I had such bad writer's block this week. To me, this chapter feels choppy and not well written, but that could just be me and my anxiety telling me that it's terrible. I also feel like it's been a billion years since I updated last, but it's only been a week, which is basically an eternity so I'm sorry about that too. Also a non-mean Jared and regular Connor are just really hard for me to write, I just don't relate to them as much as I do to Evan and Zoe, so if they suck and are super OOC, please accept my heartfelt apologies. I'm working on the next/last chapter so I hope it'll be out soon! I'm also thinking about another BandTrees story that would probably be a multi-chapter fic as well so look out for that making an appearance soon-ish. **TW** there is light violence in this chapter, nothing too graphic, but if you'd rather skip it, head to the part where Jared shows up. As always, I hope you enjoy this chapter and feel free to leave any comments, kudos, or message me with any positives or critiques! Happy reading!

Zoe wakes up to a soft knocking on the door of her and Evan’s room, well now mostly her room as last night Evan begrudgingly agreed to sleep on the couch (at least when Heidi was home). 

“Zoe, honey, are you up? I thought it might be nice to go out breakfast today, since I’ll be work tonight”, Heidi says as she walks in the room and sits down on the edge of the bed. Zoe sits up and rubs at her eyes as Heidi finishes with, “How does that sound?”. 

Zoe nods her head slowly finally coming to fully, and replies, “That sounds great. When are we leaving?”

“Soon-ish, I still have to wake Evan up, and I know you just woke up, but since you and Evan are pretty attached by the hip and we’re alone right now, I wanted to ask you something,” Heidi says gently moving towards grabbing Zoe’s hand. Zoe looks at her confused but responds with, “Sure?”. 

“Was there anything you left out on Friday, anything you maybe didn’t want to say in front of Evan? I want you to know that you can trust me and I won’t do anything, but I just wanted to make sure I had the full story, that you know that you can come to me with anything, no matter what it is”, Heidi tells her, her voice full of sincerity and empathy. 

It takes a second for Zoe to realize what Heidi was asking her, before she vehemently shakes her head no and quickly says, “No, no I told you everything on Friday, nothing like that ever happened, I promise. And I know you told me to stop thanking you but thank you for being a really good mom right now. I don’t really have one of those at the moment”, Zoe pauses unsure if she should continue, but does anyways, “My mom and I got into a fight yesterday as me and Evan were leaving the house, and I just don’t understand. Why can’t they be like you? Do they not love me?”, her voice cracking at the very end. Heidi thought something like this might make Zoe start to cry, but instead she looked stoic, like she had no more tears to cry on the subject, like she was starting to believe her questions as facts.

Heidi wraps her arms around her, something she seemed to do a lot lately, and starts petting her hair lovingly, telling her, “No Zoe, I’m sure they love you so, so much. They just don’t know how to handle your brother and they’re lost, and I promise they’ll find their way back to you. Now I didn’t mean to stir up all this un-happiness first thing in the morning, so let’s put it aside for now and get ready to go. I’m thinking a big stack of waffles sounds pretty good right now, what do you think?” 

Zoe shakes her head a little numbly but manages to smile at Heidi and unwrap herself from her hug and moves to get out of bed. Heidi takes this as her cue to leave and stands up, petting Zoe’s hair one more time before saying, “I’m going to go wake up Evan, so he’ll be in soon”, before walking out and closing the door.

Zoe walks over to the closet and picks out a dress and a bulkier cardigan to cover her arms as the bruising was starting to turn an ugly yellow-green color and it was starting to get chilly outside. By the time she was done changing, there was another knock on the door, followed by Evan’s muffled voice saying, “Zo, it’s me. Can I come in?”

Zoe opens the door, startling Evan and causing him to jump, which manages to put a real smile on her face. “Hiya Evan,” Zoe laughs, leaning in to kiss his reddening cheek and adding, “I was just about to finish getting ready in the bathroom, perfect timing on your part, room’s all yours”. 

“O-okay, but first”, Evan says as Zoe starts to walk by him towards the bathroom, but instead of letting her pass, he reaches out to tug her back to him, and kisses her sweetly, “A proper good morning since I missed you last night”, Evan finishes, hugging her closely. 

“Aww I missed you to Ev,” Zoe says snuggling into him before pulling away and adding sadly, “And as much as I want to curl up back in bed with you, I think your mom has an agenda for us, so we should probably get ready. I’m actually pretty excited for brunch though.”

“Fine-e-e”, Evan whines dragging out the final syllable before placing one more kiss on Zoe’s inner wrist and dropping her hand completely, “See you in a minute”. 

Evan walks into his room and hurries to get changed, today wearing a nicer sweater and jeans after seeing how nice Zoe looked in her dress. He finishes getting ready in the bathroom, just missing Zoe and steps in the living room to find his mom and Zoe chatting amicably, waiting for him. How lucky was he? His _girlfriend_ , just thinking it still made him giddy, and his mom, the two most important people in his life, got on so well, it made his heart swell with love. He joins them, lacing his and Zoe’s hands together, squeezing gently and letting them finish their conversation. Friday and Saturday were hard, but today was going to be a good day, Evan just knew it. 

==

After getting home from breakfast, Evan and Zoe reluctantly get their homework out and start working on it together at the kitchen counter. Evan had to work on his US history packet, Zoe on a chemistry problem set, and both of them on their Algebra II homework. They finished their separate work and set in on tackling their math problem set and Zoe was zooming through each question, where Evan was starting to get frustrated when for the third time he went to check his math answers in the back of the book, and they were wrong. He just doesn’t get math and starts complaining to Zoe, “Zo, how do you do these problems so fast? I keep getting them wrong”. 

“Walk me through what you did and I’ll try to help”, Zoe says kindly, she was aware that math was really hard for some people, she just studied extra hard to bump up a year, trying to prove to her parents that they shouldn’t have kept her back a year just because that would put her and Connor in the same grade. Maybe she would have met Evan sooner if they had been in the same year. 

“Well I multiplied the first X’s together to get X2, then I multiplied the numbers together to get 15, then they’re both minuses so the expanded version is a plus, but when I check it X2 \+ 15 isn’t right,” Evan sighs starting to erase his previous work. 

“Oh, this one has an easy explanation, you have to multiply everything together not just the X’s and numbers. I remember it by FOIL, First, Outside, Inside, Last. You were forgetting the Outside and Inside parts. Follow along with me”, Zoe says as she shows him the work she did for that problem, “So if we do the outside parts together that’s -3X and the insides is -5X, together -8X, and when you put those together with the parts you did do, it’s X2 \- 8X + 15. You were really close, Ev.”

Evan sees where he made his mistake and has Zoe watch him do the next one, just in case, and when he gets it right, he leans over and kisses her quickly telling her what a good teacher she was. Zoe accepts his compliments by giggling and kissing him again mumbling something about him “being a good student”. 

By midafternoon, they’re both done with their homework for the weekend and head to their room to start moving around furniture and planning which wall they wanted to paint. They decide on the wall his bed was against, since it had the most space and no windows on it.

“Evan, what’s been your favorite idea so far?”, Zoe asks sweetly curling into him as lounged on his bed. 

“I don’t know, all of them have sounded fun and cool, what’s your favorite been?”, Evan asks back, fiddling with the dangly loops on her cardigan. 

“I like the idea of a galaxy, a different version of the stars, but I think it’ll be too dark and I like the idea of a bunch of white and magenta peonies, which I think will look nice with the blue that’s already here, but I don’t want it to be too girly for you”, Zoe says looking him in the eye, letting him know she really did want his input. 

“I want whatever is your favorite. I don’t care if it’s girly or whatever, because no matter what it is, whenever I look it at it’ll make me think of you and you make me incredibly happy. So, in my eyes there’s nothing you could choose that I wouldn’t like”, Evan tells her, his love and admiration for her apparent in his eyes and lop-sided smile. 

“Well in that case,” Zoe paused to plant a sweet kiss on Evan’s jaw before continuing, “I think the flowers would be really nice. I haven’t gotten to paint a big project since I did the constellations in my other room”. 

Evan smiled at her use of “my room” and was about to lean in to kiss her properly, when they heard a sharp knock at their already open door, causing them to jump apart.

“Hey kiddos, I am about to head out, you can have leftovers for dinner or there’s chips if you want to make nachos. I won’t be back until you’ve already left for school tomorrow, but I’ll be home when you get home”, Heidi says chuckling to herself at the two blushing teens. 

“Sounds g-good, th-thanks Mom,” Evan manages to get out, skirting even farther away from Zoe, to the point of almost falling off the bed, not wanting his mom to think they were breaking any rules.

“Okay have a good night you two, if you need me text me or call the nurse’s line at the hospital,” Heidi says walking out of the room. 

“Bye Mom”, “Bye Heidi”, Evan and Zoe say together quickly, waving to Heidi’s retreating form, before busting out laughing about how awkward they had just been, when they hear the front door latch. 

“Jeez, Ev, your mom has impeccable timing”, Zoe continues to laugh at their ruined moment, before reaching out and pulling him back to the center of the bed. “Care to continue where you left off? I believe you were saying how happy I make you and how excited you were to paint flowers on the wall”.

“You would be correct,” Evan says snuggling her in closer, adding, “I love you so much Zoe Murphy, you make me happier than anyone in the whole world, and I can’t wait for the wall to be blessed with a Zoe Murphy original, someday it’ll go for millions, and I’ll turn every offer down”. 

He leans in to kiss all over her face playfully before capturing her lips in his own for a sweet loving kiss and they can’t really be bothered to move for the rest of the night. Evan was right, today had been a good day, and he kinda thinks every day spent with Zoe will a be good day. 

==

Evan and Zoe are woken up by the blaring of Evan’s alarm, telling them they needed to get up for school, even though both of them desperately wanted to go back to sleep. Mondays were the absolute worst. And Evan was more than a little worried what school might bring, what would happen if they left the comforting bubble of the Hansen home, namely a run-in with Connor. But Connor was basically truant at this point, skipping more classes than he actually attended, so honestly the chances of him seeing Connor were not high, but Evan still worried about it all night. At least Zoe had the added benefit of a year separating them, less chances of them running into each other in the halls, but he was worried Connor would try to cause a scene at school with her when he wasn’t around.

He tried his hardest to quiet his anxiety and painstakingly got up from the bed, dragging Zoe along with him. They fell into their normal morning routine though, Evan would go make coffee in the kitchen giving Zoe time get dressed and to do her makeup in the bathroom, before bringing her a fresh mug to have while she did her hair and while Evan changed, then they’d meet back in the kitchen to eat breakfast together.

Evan enjoyed the simplicity and domesticity of their mornings spent together, how naturally they were able to sync together. Just waking up and being around her was enough to ease his mind of all its troubles. He was seriously head over heels for this girl and he wouldn’t have it any other way. 

They make their way to school, Zoe resuming her role as driver of the blue bug, and leaving Evan to choose one of her perfectly curated playlists, even though he chooses her jazz band recordings, like he did every time he picked the music. His unwavering adoration of her makes her heart leap with reciprocated love. 

When they get to school, they walk in the halls hand-in-hand, nothing out of the ordinary for them, the drama of _Zoe Murphy_ holding hands with _Evan Hansen_ had died down a while ago. However, since their development into a couple over the weekend was unbeknownst to their fellow students, they knew the gossip mongers would set in as soon as Evan kissed her goodbye to go their separate ways for first period. Zoe wasn’t bothered by it all, so she helped assuage Evan’s worries when he had brought it up the night before. With her affirmations in his head, he knew he could do it. He had gotten through people whispering about him when they first started hanging out and he could get through it when they eventually started whispering about them dating.

Evan sat in the back row like he normally did for first period, minding his own business, when he accidentally catches Jared staring at him. They hadn’t really talked since the day Jared had told him he must’ve “tricked” Zoe into hanging out with him, and Evan wasn’t really sure where they stood. Jared had never classified them as friends before, but right now the way Jared was looking at him, somewhat apologetic, made it seem like Jared might say something to him. But before Jared gets a chance the bell rings and their AP Lit teacher starts rambling on about the themes in _Heart of Darkness_ , leaving Evan confused, but he brushes it off and starts to pay attention. 

The rest of the school day is remarkably uneventful, with Evan and Zoe following their typical school day routines of walking to classes together, eating lunch together, enjoying each other’s company. When Evan leaves Zoe at jazz band after school and starts to head to the library to wait for her, he lets out a deep sigh of relief. Nothing horrible happened today, a sure sign that things were beginning to look up after the crazy weekend he and Zoe had. 

That is until he turns the corner of the hallway near the library and finds himself face-to-face with none other than Connor Murphy. 

Evan immediately tenses and turns to walk away, but Connor had already seen him, he must have known that Evan hangs out in the library on the days Zoe had band practice, and Connor follows him through the halls.

“Hey you! Evan Hansen!”, Connor yells at him and Evan debates whether or not he should just keep walking away, but he knows Connor is faster than him and would catch up eventually, so he abruptly stops and faces him. The empty halls are a reminder that Connor could kill him right now and nobody would know, but Connor probably wasn’t going to kill him, right?

“I guess I have you to thank for my parents trying to ship me off, right?”, Connor says snidely, pushing Evan against the shoulders making him stumble slightly. Evan tries to mumble something back, but Connor continues, pushing him again, “Everything was fine until Zoe started hanging out with you and you convinced her it wasn’t and now my parents are constantly on my case about it”. 

“I didn’t c-c-convince her of anything! Alll I’ve done is s-s-support her. You’ve made all the bad decisions that h-h-have gotten you to this point!”, Evan yells back at him, suddenly less afraid now that he was back to defending Zoe. Something possesses him to takes a step towards Connor, to show that he wasn’t afraid, that he would protect Zoe whether she was in his direct war path or oblivious sitting in jazz band. Evan tries to act tougher and continues to shout at him, “You’re l-l-lucky that it’s your parents trying to help you and not the c-c-court mandating you to go”. 

“Zoe wouldn’t do that. She’d never tell anyone, and they’d never believe her. Even if she did my parents would bury it so it didn’t affect their image”, Connor responds with a somewhat manic gleam in his eye, putting air quotes around image, acting like he was untouchable, that he could do anything he wanted, get high, skip school, hit his sister and nobody could stop him.

“Do you take that as a w-w-win? That you can, can hurt her beyond repair, and she w-w-won’t tell anyone?”, Evan questions him, starting to get very angry before continuing his rant, “Well guess what she’s told me and my mom, and we believe e-e-every word she’s said. And the only r-r-reason we haven’t done anything yet is because she still l-l-loves you and wants you to be better. She’s given you every chance to and every time you stomp on her heart and betray her trust. She can’t take it anymore so, so, so you’re going to leave me and Zoe alone until you can manage being s-s-sober and being her brother again, that is unless you're dead by then”. 

Evan turns to start walking away from the troubled boy, he was shaking with both adrenaline and anger and he needed to calm down before he met Zoe after band, when Connor pulls him back, clearly itching to continue their encounter, “You can’t die from weed d-d-dummy and don’t try to tell me what to do and don’t pretend like you know my sister”. 

“We both know that’s n-n-not all you take and I do know her, and I love her more than anything in the w-w-world and I will do anything and everything in my power to keep her safe, especially from you”, Evan yells back attempting once more to leave from this situation by turning away from Connor. Evan thinks he’s almost done with this altercation when he feels the ground slip out from underneath him and his body hit the ground with the extra force of a very much taller person pining him to the ground. Evan tires to defend himself and push Connor off him, but Connor lands a couple of solid punches to Evan’s face, before Evan feels someone pull Connor off him. 

“What the fuck Murphy? What’s the matter with you?” Evan hears the voice of Jared Kleinman yell to Connor as he slowly sits up and pulls himself to lean against the lockers, feeling his face for blood. 

“Hansen, you’re lucky this moron showed up or you’d be…” Connor trails off looking more and more flighty by the second, and almost like he’d burst into tears at any moment.

“S-s-seriously Connor you need h-h-help, just let your family help you,” Evan says pitifully trying to hold back tears, wiping his mouth off on his hoodie, as Connor finally turns and runs off down the hall to who knows where, and Evan almost thinks he saw him nod, but it could have very well been his head spinning. 

“Dude Evan are you okay? What the fuck was that?”, Jared asks crouching next to Evan, and to be honest, Evan had almost completely forgotten that Jared was there and stopped Connor from doing more damage. 

“I’m fine Jared”, Evan says trying to even out his breath and prevent himself from having an anxiety attack, “Zoe is g-g-going to be so upset when she f-f-finds out”. Even with his face starting to swell and blood still in his mouth, Evan was more concerned about Zoe than himself.

“Why don’t we try to get you cleaned up? I think the office bathroom might still be unlocked and we’ve got like 30 minutes until band let’s out. Was Connor really that mad over you and Zoe dating? That’s been pretty well established around school for like weeks even if they were rumors. Did he really just find out?” Jared says trying to fill the awkward silence between the two “family friends”, while attempting to help Evan stand up. 

“W-w-why are you being n-n-nice to me? And n-n-no it’s a lot more c-c-complicated than that”, Evan questions him, his past experiences forcing him to always question Jared’s intentions.

“Well, I need to apologize to you and was going to try and find you in the library after school, but right now I can’t really focus with like your face blood everywhere,” Jared answers him truthfully, trying to show Evan he wasn’t joking.

“A-a-apologize? This isn’t l-l-like a ploy ‘cause you think like Zoe will help you be like p-p-popular or something”, Evan says still not believing Jared was being one hundred percent genuine. 

“Yeah, I’ve been a real dick to a lot of people, but to you in particular. I got it my mind that like ‘playing hard to get’ or whatever was a cool, aloof way to make friends and make people think I was cool, and it turns out it was me just being super insecure. You’re nice Evan and we’ve always been friends not just ‘family friends’ and I’ve been really lonely since you started hanging out with Zoe, I don’t really have any friends, which has been hard to admit, but um, I started seeing a counselor, someone I could talk to and they told me if I wanted to be friends with you then I needed to be a real friend, and start by apologizing to you,” Jared confesses all while leading Evan to the bathroom attached to the main school office and helping get the blood off Evan’s face and out of his hoodie. “I’m especially sorry for trying to demean your relationship with Zoe, part of me was really jealous, and that wasn’t cool. You guys are actually really nice together. I’m trying Evan, I really am, and I hope having your back with Connor just now earns back some friendship points”, Jared continues, hoping that Evan will respond soon because he was just staring at his reflection in the mirror in a daze. 

“If you really m-m-mean it, I would be willing to give you another ch-ch-chance”, Evan finally says turning to look at Jared, “It’s really b-b-brave of you to tell me all this and reach out for h-h-help from a counselor, and thanks for pulling Connor off me. I didn’t think it’d es-es-escalate that qu-qu-quickly”. 

“Yeah dude that was nuts, what’s his damage? But at least your face is looking better, probably going to have one hell of a black eye tomorrow though”, Jared says relieved that Evan accepted his apology. 

“Connor is upset about a lot of things, but mainly because Zoe is staying with me and my mom for a little bit and I guess he blames me?”, Evan says trying to be somewhat elusive about all the details, but give enough explanation as to why Connor Murphy was punching him. 

“Zoe is staying with you guys, that doesn’t sound good”, Jared says moving Evan’s hoodie sleeve to the air dryer to help it dry faster. 

“Yes, but p-p-please don’t tell anyone, it’s Z-z-zoe’s story to tell, not mine and you know how the r-r-rumor mill is at this school”, Evan asks Jared fishing around in his bag trying to find some ibuprofen and his water bottle. 

“Secret’s safe with me, homie. I hope everything is okay though,” Jared says, his voice full of sincerity, handing Evan his hoodie back.

“Now I have to meet Zoe, b-b-band is just about done, and I already know she’s going to be upset w-w-when she sees me, thanks for h-h-helping me out Jared”, Evan says walking out of the bathroom with Jared, stopping to give him a friendly hug. 

“Glad to have you back, Ev. Hope everything goes okay with Zoe. See you tomorrow.” Jared says as he hugs Evan back, before walking towards the parking lot.

Evan braced himself to go meet Zoe by the band room. When he last looked in the mirror his lip had stopped bleeding but was swollen and Jared had been right, he was definitely going to have a black eye tomorrow, but for now it just looked swollen too. What was Zoe going to say? Was she going to be mad at him? What if she wanted to break up? 

Evan was letting himself spiral as he waited outside the band room, thinking of the worst possible outcomes. Evan even ignored the small waves Zoe’s bandmates gave him, since they were used to seeing him waiting for Zoe, instead focusing on hearing their breath hitch after seeing him. God maybe he looked worse than he thought? 

When Zoe leaves the rooms with her guitar case, her smile immediately dissipates upon seeing Evan and runs over to him asking, “Oh my God, Evan are you okay? What happened?” and pulling him in close and inspecting him.

He tries his best to meet her worried eyes, but they eventually shift to the ground when he admits, “I had a sm-sm-small run-in with Connor and it d-d-didn’t end great?”, his voice pitching up at the end like he was asking Zoe a question instead of telling her what happened. Before Zoe could respond Evan hurriedly adds, “But I’m okay I swear. Are you mad at me? I kept trying to walk away put he kept pulling me back until Jared showed up”.

“I’m not mad at you Ev, worried about you and angry at my brother, but not you. You tried your best and I know how explosive Connor can get”, Zoe says sadly, wrapping her arms around him and giving him the gentlest kiss to the side of his head. “I can’t believe he went after you, at school too. I’m so sorry I brought you into this mess. I never meant for you to get hurt”, Zoe continues finally meeting Evan’s eyes as he lifted them from the ground, and he can see how upset she is. 

“It’s n-n-not our f-f-fault how Connor decides to act. What’s im-important is that I’ll be okay. And I’m p-p-pretty sure I brought myself into this m-m-mess,” Evan tells her, squeezing into their hug, and trying to manage a smile to hopefully comfort her, he was feeling much calmer now that he knew she wasn’t mad at him, and his ibuprofen had started to kick in. 

“But I think he might be serious about g-g-getting help now, I don’t know, when he ran away after Jared showed up, he just seemed d-d-different, like a switch was flipped?”, Evan tells her as they start walking to her car, “And also in other news, Jared apologized to me and I think we might be f-friends now”. 

“That’s great Evan, I’m really happy for you”, Zoe says, her voice displaying the exact opposite of what she was claiming. Zoe unlocks her car and moves to get in, but Evan pulls her back, wrapping his arms around her once more, letting her head fall to his shoulder.

“Zo, I know telling you not to be upset isn’t helpful, but please know I’m here, I’m okay, you’re okay and I would confront Connor every day of the year if it meant you were safe and didn’t have to deal with. I love you so much and the only thing I was thinking during the whole thing was ‘at least it’s not Zoe’ after I was worried you’d be mad that I yelled at him, but this is just one more thing we’ll get through together. You and me. Us and only us”, Evan tells her pulling back to gently wipe away a lone tear that had fallen from her green eyes.

“Us and only us”, Zoe repeats and leans up to kiss his cheek because his lip was still puffy. She lets the kiss linger before laying her head back on his shoulder, squeezing him tight, like he might fade away of she let go. She decides there in that moment as they stood in front of her car, in the middle of the school parking lot, that she would never let go of Evan.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I went back and forth on deleting the entire first half, but maybe some one out there wants to read about Zoe and Evan doing Algebra II? I don't know, hopefully this chapter wasn't a complete mess and the drama was there! Up next I'm envisioning cute holiday BandTrees moments and the Murphys apologizing to Zoe. Stay tuned!!!!


	8. I Love You More and More Each Day

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Evan and Zoe spend winter break together. Connor apologizes to ZOe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey Everybody! So this is it, the final chapter! And once again I feel like it's a hodgepodge mess, but I also kind of like it? What it ended up being what different than what I had originally outlined, mostly the Murphy parents never apologize to Zoe for being the worst, which would have been hard to write, and I'm not really sure the way I've written them if they would have actually apologized to her. Also, Connor is probably super OOC, but I've already said Connor is hard for me to write so...
> 
> I also really want to say thank you to everybody who has read this fic, that started as a teeny one-shot and grew so much. I appreciate all the comments and kudos, they have been so encouraging when I start to doubt myself and my story. So thank you!! As always, enjoy this chapter and feel free to leave any critiques, comments, or kudos! Happy reading!

Days quietly slip into weeks and before Evan knows it school is letting out for winter break and Zoe had been living with him for a little over two months. Evan can’t remember a time in his life when he’s been happier. And for as much as he’s watched Zoe, he thinks he’s never seen her happier too. She had a lightness to her, probably due to the fact she was no longer bearing the burden of brother alone and Connor was actually trying to get better. He never confronted Evan or Zoe again at school after punching Evan or made any attempts to reach out to Zoe, but Zoe knew about his progress through her mom. 

Zoe’s parents started by putting Connor into weekly, sometimes bi-weekly therapy sessions to work through his anger and why he felt the need to take it out on Zoe. Therapy wasn’t exactly the cure-all the Murphy’s were hoping for, because Connor would decide he didn’t like the therapist and refuse to go back, until there was almost none left in their immediate area, and therapy didn’t help him with getting sober—Connor insisted that he was self-medicating and that the drugs weren’t part of the problem. That was until his parents found him passed out on a park bench after smoking weed that had been laced with meth without his knowledge. And Connor was so shaken up about the incident he agreed to more intense treatments.

This final push to get Connor real help involved sending him to a 10-week rehabilitation center about an hour outside of their town, where he would get daily one-on-one therapy and weekly group therapy, all while learning to live without getting high and how to use healthy coping methods when he felt out of control. He had started last week, and Zoe’s parents continually asked her to come along to their weekly visits, but she wasn’t ready to be around him, not yet anyways.

Zoe especially struggled with her lack of wanting to keep in touch and try with her own biological family and the happiness she felt when she immersed herself into Evan’s family. Her past abuses kept her from wanting to be with them, but her past good experiences, from when her and Connor were small and inseparable made her keep trying, because to give up and leave completely would mean giving up the hope that she could have her best friend back, and she wasn’t quite ready to give that up either.

She tried her best to manage both families, living with Evan, but having dinner out with her parents (when Connor was at therapy) once a week, going to Heidi when she needed mom-advice (like deciding on what type of birth control would be best for her and going to Planned Parenthood with her), but texting her mom for less serious stuff, like to help pick out a winter formal dress and order a boutonniere, taking comfort in the relationship she and Evan had built together, but attempting to reach out to Connor by sending him a ‘good luck’ text when he left for rehab, inviting her parents to the jazz band concert, but singing and playing from her private repertoire at home for Evan and Heidi. It was hard, but Zoe was managing and she couldn’t wait for winter break and all that it entailed: winter formal, learning about and celebrating Hanukkah, making Christmas cookies with Evan (her holiday contribution), getting a break from school, and overall just relaxing from the stress last semester had brought her and Evan. 

==

Evan and Zoe were getting ready to go to their school’s winter formal that night. Evan knew Zoe really wanted to go and sophomores could only go if they were invited by an upperclassman i.e. him, so he buried all his anxiety about how awful the dance would be and had asked her a couple weeks before, which he was immensely proud of himself for. He waited until his mom was at work and Zoe had left to have dinner with her parents, he normally went with her, but that night he feigned being sick and got to work as soon as she left. He’d enlisted Jared to help set up his house because he knew they’d have to be quick, as sometimes Zoe came home early from visiting her parents. 

The boys got to work dangling twinkling fairy lights (to remind Zoe of the stars) and filling Zoe and Evan’s room with flowers he had his mom hide in her room earlier that day, Evan even lit some candles to set a romantic stage for an intricate winter formal proposal. Normally Evan would be nervous to do something this elaborate as well as follow through by going to the dance, but he knew how much it meant to Zoe, which made him prioritize and cherish it. It was his first chance to do something like this as her boyfriend, and his made him giddy-anxious about how excited he knew Zoe would be. His last step was to tape a simple beautifully written note (he tried really hard) to the front door so Zoe would see it as soon as she got home, and she’d know to go straight to their room. 

Evan sat patiently in their room fiddling with his thumbs, waiting until he heard the lock of Zoe’s car and the front door open. He stood so that he’d be the first thing Zoe saw as she walked through the door, and he’s pretty sure his heart skipped several beats when Zoe walked through with the biggest smile on her face he’d ever seen. He picks her up and spins her around before asking simply, “Zoe Murphy, will you to winter formal with me?” Instead of answering Zoe just nods excitedly and kisses him. 

Evan remembered like it was a dream, he doesn’t know how he’ll top this proposal for future ones, and yeah he knows it’s too soon to think about that with both of them having multiple years of high school left, but the thought of spending his whole life with Zoe makes him flush with excitement. 

Zoe had been getting ready in his mom’s room so that Evan couldn’t peek at her hair, make-up, or dress before she walked out as a big reveal for photos. And since Evan took a considerable less amount of time to get ready, he was left waiting awkwardly in his living room with Larry Murphy. 

Zoe had invited her parents to take pictures and see them off from the Hansen’s, and even though Evan had gotten to know her parents a little better, he was still hesitant around Cynthia and Larry, not 100% sold on their sincerity after not doing anything for so long. But Zoe was trying to forgive them, and he’d support her in whatever she wanted, hence him standing awkwardly in his living room, trying to avoid talking by shifting his weight back and forth on his feet. 

Larry tries to make conversation, turning to Evan and clapping him on the back saying, “You look nice son, where are you and Zoe going for dinner again?”

“Th-thanks,” Evan stumbles out looking down at his attire, he did have to agree though, his all black suit and simple gold bowtie (gold was the only hint Zoe would give about her dress) looked really good on him, before continuing, “I, uh, I think w-w-were going to 54 Below. Um, Zoe picked it”. 

“That’s a nice restaurant, you kids will have a lot of fun,” Larry says, and before he can continue to probably give a “dad talk” about how to treat “his little girl” as if Evan didn’t already treat Zoe like she was the center of his universe (because she was), they hear Cynthia and Heidi emerge from the back bedroom, awing over how pretty Zoe looked, leaving so that Zoe could “make an entrance”. 

Evan catches his mom’s eyeline and she winks at him smiling, while getting out her phone to take pictures, and he starts getting nervous about seeing Zoe. What if she’s disappointed in the corsage he picked out? What if he couldn’t order at the restaurant? What if they got to the dance and everyone wondered who the loser with the beautiful Zoe Murphy was? 

But as Zoe slows walks out from the hallway, all of Evan’s worries melt away and are replaced with awe and love for the girl in front of him. Zoe was absolutely stunning. Her dress was pretty, long and form-fitting with long sleeves and short train and covered in sparkly gold floral appliques, but nothing compared to Zoe herself. She styled her hair into big curls, pushed away from her face with big gold pins and kept her make-up simple and elegant. Evan thought he might pass out right in front of everyone, because he forgot how to breathe, but Zoe grabbed his hands and for once didn’t have to reach up to kiss his cheek, whispering to him, “Hey Ev”. 

“Zo, you l-l-look amazing, not that you d-d-don’t always look a-a-amazing, but just just I can’t d-describe”, Evan tells her as she pulls away, he goes to ramble on more unintelligible compliments (something he hadn’t done in long time in front of her) as she smiles widely and pulls him back in for a real kiss, forgetting their parents were only a few feet away. Evan relaxes into their kiss, letting it go a little further than he should have, but he didn’t really care right now. As they break away, they remember they have an audience as Cynthia squeals, “You kids, time for corsages and boutonnieres, and more pictures!” 

Evan smiles and leads Zoe to the counter where Heidi had set out their flowers and both teens were excited to see what the other had picked. Zoe went first, picking up Evan’s boutonniere to show him. She had picked out mini white roses and mini pinecones with baby’s breath and lots of deep green leaves and a few pine boughs wrapped in a delicate gold floral tape. Not only was it a perfect match to Evan’s corsage, it was perfectly Evan. Evan smiled at her as she tried to pin it to his suit, giggling as she narrowly missing jabbing him with the pin. “I love it, it’s perfect just like you”, Evan tells her, kissing her cheek sweetly, unsure how much more PDA they could get away with in front of their parents. Evan grabs his corsage for Zoe and watches as her eyes light up seeing it. Evan had also picked out white roses, one big one surrounded by a bunch of mini ones, complemented by tiny pine boughs and baby’s breath, with sparkly gold ribbon woven throughout with extra side ribbon to tie it on Zoe’s wrist. Without knowing it, they had both ordered the perfect flowers for their perfect night. 

Evan and Zoe pose for many pictures requested by both moms, confirm they know their curfew, accept many more compliments on how nice they look, and finally they’re able to make their way to Zoe’s car and have a moment to themselves. 

“Zoe, I love you so much. I think you know how nervous I’ve been for the dance, but honestly, seeing how happy you are, I would go through that again a hundred times over, if it meant being with you in this moment. You make me feel like I can do anything and overcome every obstacle. I think I’m actually looking forward to seeing everyone be jealous at the dance. There will be no one there who compares to you”, Evan tells her, looking her in the eye, making slow circles on her palm with his thumb, not letting go of her hand, trying to emphasize how much he means every word. 

Zoe, feeling slightly overwhelmed with emotion and blinking back tears (she was not going to let her make-up get ruined) doesn’t say anything, just nods her head and leans over the tiny console to kiss him deeply. Before things get too heated, they pull away from each other, admiring how they were still able to make each other blush, and Zoe whispers, “I love you too Evan” against his ear, sealing her sentiment with a sweet kiss to his cheek. 

The night they have is the appropriate amount of cliché, mixed with fun novelty, and a beautiful reminder that they don’t always have to carry the weight of the world upon their shoulders, that they can just be two teenagers having fun at school dance with each other. Evan was absolutely right, no one compares to how beautiful Zoe looks, and he doesn’t hesitate to tell her all through the night. Zoe convinces him to dance with her, to romantic slow songs and to the faster upbeat ones too, and Evan finds himself loving both, not once thinking about how awkward he must have looked, his mind only consumed with thoughts of Zoe. They take pictures with the school-hired photographer against the cheesy snowflake back drop, they eat mini-cupcakes with icicle-blue frosting, and they enjoy the time they have together. When they get home and find a note from Heidi saying she got called in to work, Evan helps Zoe with her dress and Zoe helps Evan with his stiff shirt buttons and they continue to enjoy being together. And when future Evan looks back on his desk and sees their dried flowers, a perfect matching set, he’s not really sure if anything would ever be better than this night.

==

Zoe is looking forward to Hanukkah starting and getting to know more about the holiday and she was even more excited that her parents were spending Christmas at Connor’s treatment center, so all the pressure was off of her to spend the upcoming holiday with her family, instead getting to show Evan and Heidi some of her favorite holiday traditions.

This year Heidi thought it could be nice to do a sort-of Christmas/Hanukkah combination where for the eight days they celebrated they could exchange eight smaller gifts and take turns lighting the menorah (something Zoe loved doing), and the two teens happily agreed, excited about a real reason to buy and make each other things. Evan’s favorite thing he gave Zoe was a collections of macramé bracelets he made, they were colorful and intricate, and Zoe said she’d never take them off because they reminded her of him. Zoe’s favorite gift to Evan was a small painting she made of his favorite apple tree in the orchard, where she delicately painted them together, sitting beneath the branches, very much like the first day they had talked to each other. Evan treasures it the way he treasures the real memory and he hangs it proudly above his desk, fitting perfectly into the wall that had started as one photo booth strip and had become so much more, a monument to their relationship. 

Zoe had convinced Evan to let her parents pay for an all-inclusive spa trip as Heidi’s final present, not only did she deserve it, but Zoe also wanted to do something really special for the women she felt closer to than her real mom. Heidi was ecstatic over both of their thoughtfulness and tried to hint that the day she was at the spa maybe Zoe could spend with her parents or maybe even Connor if she felt up to it. 

After talking it over with Evan and him telling her she wasn’t a bad person if she didn’t want to go and she wasn’t a bad person if she wanted to go either, all between loving kisses. Whatever she chose to do he would support her and encourage her, which is how they ended up driving to Connor’s rehab center on a blustery, freezing Saturday before they were scheduled to head back to school. Evan was coming with her, but they decided he’d stay outside, ready to step in if necessary, but far enough away to let Zoe talk to Connor on her own. It’d been three months since Zoe had had any contact with Connor, besides her one text, which he never responded to.

After they had parked and signed in, Zoe found herself frozen in the corridor next to Connor’s room. Her abrupt stop causes Evan to lurch forward, yanking their interwoven hands apart. Evan sees how scared Zoe looks and takes the few steps back to her and wraps his arms around, gently kissing her temple before saying, “Zo, you don’t have to do this if you don’t want to, we could turn around right now and forget today happened, but if you still want to, you don’t have to do it alone. We’re in this together. Always.”

Zoe looks up at him, her big green eyes glittering with unshed tears, then nods her head and curls into him more. They stay like that for a few minutes before Zoe pulls away, tears iced over with steely resolve, a look Evan has seen way too many times on her for his liking, but he’s proud of her anyways. She grabs his hand and pulls him onward, saying, “I can do this, we’re just talking. I can leave whenever I want”. And Evan’s pretty sure she’s talking to herself more than him, so he opts to squeeze her hand in support.

They stop in front of Connor’s room and Zoe takes a deep breath, drops Evan’s hand and is about to knock on the door, when Evan pulls her back to kiss her softly, whispering, “I love you and you can do this”. She smiles appreciatively at him before resuming knocking on the door. 

After a few seconds, the door opens quickly with a confused looking Connor standing behind it. He’s healthier looking than Zoe remembers him being in a long time. His hair is clean and pulled back, he doesn’t look so pale and ghastly, and he looks like he’s put on a bit of weight, not looking so gangly and skinny, but healthily slim and tall. 

Connor speaks first after a few moments of silence between the three, “Hey Zoe, hey Evan. I didn’t think you’d come here”.

“I th-thought we could t-talk maybe,” Zoe says shakily, nervous about how Connor might react, with good reason as the next thing Connor says is, “Jeez Zo, spending a little too much time with Evan I see. You’re stammering just like him”. 

Zoe doesn’t even say anything back to him, just grabs Evan’s arm and turns on her heels, and starts to walk away, muttering that this was a huge mistake. What she doesn’t expect is Connor to follow after them, gently tapping her shoulder and apologizing. She turns around to hear him say, “I’m sorry Zoe. That was uncalled for. You have every right to be nervous around me, but you showed up, with Evan too, and it made me panicky, so I just defaulted to saying something mean as a defense mechanism. I really want to talk to you to. I have a lot more to apologize for”.

Zoe looks at Connor with an awestruck expression on her face. She would have never imagined her brother, violent, volatile Connor would actually apologize to her, not once, but twice and admit that he was wrong. Zoe looks to Evan in this awkward silent moment the three of them were sharing, and Evan squeezes her hand, letting her know his original offer still stood—they could leave and not look back, or stay and hear Connor out—whatever she decides he would stand by it one hundred percent. Zoe squeezes his hand back and turns to face Connor, and Evan knows they’re staying. 

“Okay let’s talk”, Zoe says a little more coolly than she had intended, but then again, she did have a lot of pent-up anger towards him, and waves her hand to, instructing Connor to lead them back to his room. 

Connor’s room looks a lot like what Zoe imagines a dorm room to look like, but without any personal touches, plain gray bedding on a twin bed, a plain dresser, and one older looking chair next to a window, with a couple of books placed on it. 

“I can, um, ask the staff if we could have another chair, for Evan,” Connor says lamely, just now realizing their wasn’t much space for them all to sit comfortably, “When Mom and Dad are here, we normally meet in like the rec room”, he finishes awkwardly.

“We’ll sit on the bed, you can sit in the chair over there,” Zoe instructs while pulling Evan down to the bed with her, the thought of him staying outside and not by her side was now inconceivable to her. Even if Evan didn’t say anything or do anything other than hold her hand, it made her feel better to have him near. 

“How are you doing?”, Zoe asks Connor, not really sure how to start the emotionally charged conversation she was sure they were about to have. 

“Um, good. The first couple of weeks were pretty terrible. But I like my therapist, she’s the only one I’ve liked, and the library here is cool”, Connor says tugging on the draw strings of his hoodie before adding, “How have you been?”

“Good. Better than I have been in a long time”, Zoe replies giving Connor a hard glare, and when she sees him wince, she knows he understands what she means.

“Look, Zo, I have a lot to apologize for, and I know that we’re not all of a sudden going to be best friends from one apology, but I’m willing to try”, Connor says, lifting his gaze from the ground to meet Zoe’s. Zoe nods her head, urging Connor to continue, “I used to feel really out of control, almost like an out-of-body experience, like even though I wanted to stop doing terrible things, I couldn’t. So, I turned to weed first, then harder stuff later on, to make me feel more in control, but it just got worse, and then you became the target of all my anger and lack of control. And then everything spiraled. The person who I am, the person I want to be is the one who loves reading and lame jokes and drawing, and he was suddenly gone and was replaced by someone I don’t want to be anymore. I don’t want my little sister to be terrified of me, I don’t want to be so unhinged that I try to choke you. I want to be the brother that defends you, that you can come to, that we complain about mom and dad together, that would beat the shit out this guy” he pauses, glancing at Evan sitting protectively next to Zoe, “…again if he ever dared to break your heart. I want to be better, and I can be better”. 

“Okay”, Zoe says, her voice barely above a whisper, “I haven’t forgiven you; I need you to know that first, but I think I could eventually. I want those things too. I want my brother back, and I think you can be better.” 

Evan looks between the two Murphy siblings and squeezes Zoe’s hand giving her support through both of their admissions. 

It a couple minutes before anyone speaks again and surprisingly, it’s Connor who breaks the ice with, “There’s board games in the rec room if you guys want to stay and play? Zoe, I know you used to love Monopoly. I don’t know if you still like it, but they, uh, have it?”

Zoe and Evan share a look, communicating to each other silently, both agreeing to stay a little while longer, to try, even if they felt emotionally drained. “We’ll stay, only if I get to be the dog though”, Zoe says feeling lighter when she sees Connor’s mouth twinge up into a small smile. 

They weren’t perfect and they probably never would be and there would be tumultuous highs and lows, but that afternoon the agreement was made, that they would try. And Evan thinks, observing the two quietly, that the deep emotional bruise that was Zoe and Connor’s relationship maybe started to heal and fade away just a bit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hopefully the ending wasn't disappointing! Connor and Zoe are on their way back to being the wholesome beans we know they can be. Also the line after the dance something like "continue to enjoy each other" was deliberately written vague, so imagine whatever you want! Also, I don't know anything about Hanukkah or rehab centers and didn't really look anything up, so if anything was wrong I'm sorry. 
> 
> Thank you to everyone for sticking it out with me as I figured out this website and how to write (hopefully better). I'm going to take a little time off, but I can't get the idea of a reverse TreeBros fic out of my mind and by reverse I mean Connor and Evan start out dating but Evan gets closer and closer to Zoe and can't really figure out why Connor says she the worst, until they kiss/hook-up/whatever behind Connor's back and Evan's forced to choose (spoiler he's going to choose Zoe) so let me know if that's something you'd be interested in reading, because it'll probably make an appearance shortly!

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you liked it! I thinking about maybe doing a continuation? Let me know if that's a dumb idea.


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